World Cup TV and streaming schedule on Fox and Telemundo for November 20

After over 12 years of controversy and anticipation, the 2022 men’s World Cup in Qatar is finally here. Sunday brings the first game of the tournament, host nation Qatar facing Ecuador.

Opening day originally was supposed to be Monday with a quadrupleheader of games. But Qatari organizers petitioned FIFA to let the opener have its own spotlight, and world soccer’s governing body agreed.

This had the funny consequence — at least, funny to outsiders — of derailing a big publicity campaign touting 100 days to the tournament’s kickoff. Billboards, posters, and ads on buses and taxis all over the world suddenly were promoting the wrong date.

That’s finally in the past now, but there still are plenty of controversies swirling. On Friday, two days before the tournament, FIFA yielded to a demand by Qatar’s government to ban alcohol sales to fans at stadiums. The move drew a heap of scorn from fans around the world and breached a big-money contract with official sponsor Budweiser.

(Not least because VIPs in luxury boxes will still have access to booze, from beer to an official FIFA-branded champagne.)

» READ MORE: FIFA bans alcohol for fans at Qatar World Cup stadiums two days before kickoff

“That raised the possibility that other promises that run counter to local laws and customs — including issues like press freedom, street protests and the rights of LGBTQ+ visitors — were not as rock-solid as Qatar and FIFA have said,” the New York Times wrote.

The Times further reported a well-sourced belief “that the change had originated with Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani — the brother of Qatar’s ruling emir and the royal most active in the day-to-day planning of the tournament.”

Beyond stadium walls, journalists from the U.S. and Denmark have been harassed for doing their jobs. Construction is only just finishing on housing accommodations for the over one million fans who will come to a place the size of Connecticut for the World Cup. And, as the Times noted, we still don’t know for sure how LGBTQ+ fans will be treated by authorities in a nation where homosexuality is banned.

Don’t expect to hear about any of this on Fox’s TV broadcasts in the U.S. The network’s World Cup executive producer David Neal told The Inquirer last month that his broadcasts won’t cover what he called “those ancillary stories.”

“If a story affects the field of play, if it affects the competition in the tournament, we will cover it fully,” Neal said. “If it doesn’t, if it’s ancillary to the tournament, if it has to do with the construction of the venues or what have you, we’re going to leave that to other entities to cover. Our focus is entirely on the 64-game tournament.”

Fox also is taking a lot of sponsorship money from Qatar’s state-owned airline, Qatar Airways.

With all that said, there will be a World Cup game on Sunday. Here’s how to watch it.

» READ MORE: Fox’s World Cup coverage won’t address Qatar controversies, but Telemundo does it on opening day

Time: 11 a.m.

Venue: Al Bayt Stadium, Al Khor, Qatar

English TV/streaming: FS1 and FoxSports.com (John Strong on play-by-play with analyst Stuart Holden, reporters Jenny Taft and Tom Rinaldi, and referee expert Joe Machnik).

Spanish TV/streaming: Telemundo 62, TelemundoDeportes.com and Peacock (Andrés Cantor on play-by-play with analysts Manuel Sol and Carlos Tenorio).

FS1′s pregame coverage starts at 9:30 a.m., postgame coverage ends at 1 p.m., and there’s a prime-time studio show at 9 p.m. Telemundo’s coverage starts at 9 a.m., postgame coverage ends at 2 p.m., and there’s a late-night studio show at 11:30 p.m.

FoxSports.com and TelemundoDeportes.com require authentication through participating pay-TV providers. Peacock is NBC and Telemundo’s subscription streaming service. The first 12 games of the World Cup will be available on Peacock’s free tier, then the rest will be behind the subscription paywall.

Fox will have replays of every game for free on its streaming platform Tubi, though it’s not known yet how quickly they’ll be posted.

Betting odds: Qatar +260, Ecuador +120, tie +210

Qatar: Almoez Ali. It’s hard to know how good the host team will be. The whole squad plays in the nation’s domestic league, and the league has been shut down for months so the national team can train together.

What we do know is that Qatar won the Arab Cup, a tournament basically of Middle Eastern nations’ B teams, last December; and in the summer of 2021, Qatar reached the Concacaf Gold Cup semifinals as an invited guest. It tied Panama, beat Grenada, Honduras, and El Salvador, then gave the U.S. a serious game in a 1-0 loss.

Players who made names for themselves in that run included Ali, fellow forward Hassan Al-Haydos, and midfielder Abdulaziz Hatem. Now we’ll see how they do on the biggest stage of all.

Ecuador: Diego Palacios. His name might still rattle Union fans, because he set up Los Angeles FC’s dramatic late tying goal in the MLS Cup final. But you don’t have to be a fan of either team to know he’s a really good left back, and good left backs are hard to come by. If he plays well in the World Cup, LAFC will be able to cash a big check for him afterward.

» READ MORE: Philadelphia’s many ties to the 2022 World Cup