(Doha, Qatar)- There was something special in the air throughout the day today at the Al Sadd Sports Club in Doha, and it wasn’t the crisp cool air conditioning offering comfort to fans and players alike.

It was an intangible, what we used to call on the east coast of the USA, “that certain something,” an unknowable, hard to describe feeling, when you know something is good, but you can’t quite figure out why. You just know it’s good, and it’s only going to get better. You just know...