DOHA, Qatar – At the W Hotel in the tony-tony-tony West Bay district, the view stretches south, toward the downtown skyline. The scene is even fancier, more opulent, inside a second-floor lounge on Monday night. There’s a DJ. A VIP section. A spotlight. Red carpets. The works.
Still, the late-arriving crowd that’s assembling inside—one guest is dressed as Ted Lasso; another perches an (obviously-not-real) bald eagle on his shoulder—is not here for the gleam. No, this is the headquarters for U.S. soccer supporters, and what they want is fellowship, regardless of anything, least of all gender.
There are women inside on Monday night, and that might not seem like a big deal. But in a country where women are essentially treated like second-class citizens, confined by gender inequality, told how to dress and mandated to obey their husbands, it’s not insignificant at all. These women traveled to the first World Cup in the Arab world, knowing that risks existed and not knowing what to expect. Restaurants, bars and hotels—those presented little issue. Consider each an oasis of normalcy. But tournament games, traveling to them, and everyday tourism left plenty of unknowns.
Many women carried their concerns along with their suitcases to this particular World Cup. They heard all sorts of things: that women were only allowed inside of soccer stadiums in recent years; that their bodies needed to be covered from their shoulders to below their knees, at all times; that Qataris might object to things like … their presence. Many heard from concerned family members who wondered whether, when Qatar invited the world for the biggest sporting event in existence, it really meant half the world, the half with Y chromosomes.
Matthias Koch/Imago Images
Lila Asnani, an image consultant in Las Vegas, heard those same things and shared some of the same concerns. But she decided to fly to Doha anyway, because she is a soccer fan, because she is a woman and, above all, because she wanted to connect with people who might consider those notions mutually exclusive. She wanted to show them what female empowerment looked like when embodied, whether in demeanor, interactions or outfits.
She is Wonder Woman, after all—at least in costume, at international soccer matches, as inevitably shown on television. Millions of viewers across the world can see her bare shoulders, her make-up, jewelry, tights.
“It’s a fallacy that only women or only men love soccer,” she says, while a bus of U.S. fans rumbles toward Al Bayt Stadium for the England game last week. “Soccer is universal. Soccer is passion. Why should we limit women’s value? Need to be validated by our partners? Turned into cheerleaders?”
She smiles. “We should have freedom to express what we love.”
How does that go, here, in Qatar? What’s it really like, on the ground?
Well, that night, wearing her usual costume, Asnani poses for two photos with an Islamic woman in the stands. She’s heartened that the woman approached her, given their differences in clothing, religion (Asnani identifies as Episcopalian Christian) and political views (Asnani leans liberal). She understands why the woman doesn’t want her to post a picture with the woman’s face exposed. Hence the second snapshot. She wishes they could have a longer interaction, actually connect. In other words, this brief moment underscores her experience overall: mostly positive, definitely different and not exactly what she’s hoping for.
Like everything else in Qatar, it's complicated.
Asnani long ago found community in soccer. She grew up in Kuching, Malaysia, watching the beautiful game with her brothers. Any game, really, sometimes even in the middle of the night. Her family ran a fabric business, specializing in imported threads and fashion design. When it came time for college, she moved to America and enrolled at Oregon State to study chemical engineering. Eventually, she switched majors, to biochemistry and biophysics. She also joined a sorority, seeking kinship once more.
Her future husband, Marcus Cranston, was on the same degree track. Asnani had grown tired of “dating fraternity boys.” She wanted a progressive boyfriend, and when Cranston became a regular study partner, she was drawn mostly to his brain. He was smart. He often scored better on tests than she did.
So she “vetted” him, as a potential boyfriend not a physics savant. She found out that he came from a small town in Montana, that he hunted but not often, and that he was in the military, but as a medic. He wanted to help people, not hurt them. She asked him to a Sadie Hawkins dance. They connected. Started dating. Married. Obtained advanced degrees – hers, a Master’s in public administration from Portland State; his, a Master’s in Public Health from San Diego State and a doctorate in medicine from Oregon Health & Science.
They moved to Las Vegas, where he served in the Air Force, working as a physician, and retiring as a colonel. They had two girls, now adults in their mid-20s. They traveled all over the world. And while they did all that, Asnani created her own business, as a stylist and image consultant and, when not playing Wonder Woman at soccer stadiums, the self-proclaimed Fairy Godmother of Style.
She loved many things about her husband. But it was his bearing that stood out most of all. He could be reserved, even shy, introverted. Eventually, she uncovered what transformed him. This process began with their favorite sport.
They went to games and started following the national team and one day, in 1998, Cranston mentioned that he wanted to go to the World Cup. He didn’t think it was possible, but Asnani responded, “Let’s make it happen.” Hadn’t they both done that all their lives?
They made it happen. They went to France that year, where they saw Iranian players gift their American counterparts with white roses before their match, a kind gesture meant to symbolize peace and ease tensions bubbling between their governments. They went to Korea four years later and stayed on a military base that welcomed servicemen and their families. These excursions cemented their bond, giving them something that was theirs to share.
Courtesy of Lila Asnani
They fell in love again, together, with soccer and the underdog Americans who played with oversized hearts. When the national anthem played at games, Asnani often was moved to tears. To her, the team came to represent how she felt about her adopted country. It was brotherhood and dreams, immigrants united, generations tethered by air horns blasting and magical din and goallllssssss.
Asnani understands that some may not share that viewpoint. They may not see America that way. But as – her words – an Asian woman who isn’t necessarily statuesque and who immigrated to the United States, she felt … accepted at the matches, among the masses, which is what she wanted all along.
In 2010, Asnani and Cranston went to South Africa for their fourth World Cup. Only this time, her husband wanted to dress up. He floated the idea of a Captain America costume. She worried that other fans would laugh at him. They shelved the get-up, but she came to feel bad for having pushed him that way. Still, they saw Landon Donovan’s iconic goal and took in America’s epic run. The costumes, they could wait.
Three years later, after receiving an invite to a Halloween party, Asnani decided to design her first Wonder Woman costume. This represented a makeup call of sorts, a warming to his idea and then a full embrace of what he wanted. She sewed the initial outfit herself.
Both considered what Cranston might wear to match her vision, and they decided that there were too many Captain Americas to count. He kept thinking. What was the most patriotic symbol? Then, it came to him, like a lightning bolt of inspiration. The bald eagle, of course.
At that moment, Eagleman was born.
Eagleman and Wonder Woman made their World Cup costume debut in Brazil in 2014. At their first game in full regalia, it took two hours to walk a mile to the stadium. Hundreds of supporters from all over the world wanted pictures. If anyone laughed at them, whatever hate arose was dwarfed by the love that showered from everywhere else.
They’ve worn the costumes ever since, at least at U.S. games, through 32 years (and counting) of marriage, Cranston’s retirement, his Parkinson’s diagnosis, the tournament in Russia, all the way to here. They’re empty nesters now, which freed up their schedules considerably. They’re regularly shown on soccer broadcasts, known, in their world, all over the world. They’re part of a community, like the mom and dad of U.S. soccer fans.
And, as the tournament in Qatar approached, Asnani thought about how his costume transformed her husband, how it freed and loosened him, allowing him to just … be. His diagnosis reminded them to optimize their experiences, because they didn’t know how many they would have left. “It really spurred our passion to another level,” Asnani says. Sure, their daughters’ might be a little "mortified” at the sight of mom and dad clad in such get-ups on TV. But there was Don Garber, MLS commissioner, approaching them at an event for donors. He didn’t ask, what’s with the costumes? He asked for a picture, instead.
Now, at their seventh World Cup, after something like 75 national team games, they also wondered: couldn’t they, maybe, teach Qataris what they had learned along the way? Or was that notion mere fairy tale, an impossible dream?
Courtesy of Lila Asnani
As their flight sped toward Doha, Cranston wasn’t worried about his wife’s safety. He knew there would be restrictions. But he had also visited more than 140 countries, and he knew that crime statistics in Qatar ranked among the lowest in the world. His wife had gotten her costume altered, too, to comply with norms and regulations. Her tailor added fabric in the shoulders and lengthened the pieces overall.
Their concerns centered more on how they might be perceived at home, and whether they could be themselves out here. They didn’t want friends to view their trip as, Cranston says, “supporting the Qatari government or promoting human rights abuses.”
“In the grand scheme, we feel like it’s better to engage,” he says. “If you want to expose someone to a different way of life.”
For the first U.S. match, as the American supporters marched out of a mall near the stadium, Cranston noticed two Qatari boys, teenagers, wearing thobes, those long, white and flowing robes, nearby. Their eyes were wide. He handed one the corner of a U.S. scarf, and that boy smiled. The other boy stood near him, wearing a matching expression on his face. It marked a small-but-significant moment.
Everyone wanted pictures. Sometimes, it was older, traditional Islamic men. Sometimes, it was their wives. Young women seemed the most interested in Asnani, of course, but perhaps that owes to the way she exists – bold, confident, soulful, calves exposed – and perhaps they had never met someone like that before. She remained respectful of the culture but stayed true to herself, and locals and visitors alike seemed receptive to that combination.
“I came in with eyes wide open,” she says. “I understood the culture. I understood the values. I’m not walking to the game in a bikini or anything like that.”
That’s how Asnani felt last week, anyway, early into their trip. But her feelings began to evolve, somewhat, over time. It wasn’t the man who screamed WHOA! when Wonder Woman passed him on the street. It wasn’t the snickers she heard occasionally from passersby. It wasn’t the women who cast their eyes down and walked past, shaking their heads or quickening their pace, as if embarrassed for her, by her.
It wasn’t what happened to her. It was what didn’t happen at all.
As her experience in Qatar continues, Asnani says she wishes her visit had been more impactful, more connective. By Monday night, at the party, she had been in town for over a week and held no conversations with any natives longer than a minute. She wears a costume that is intended to scream female empowerment, but it sometimes feels like the threads have turned her into a novelty, a sideshow. It certainly hasn’t connected her to the people here, the people she wants to meet and know and understand, beyond pictures and nods and brief smiles. Qatari men have hardly uttered a word in her direction. Even when they want to know something from her, they address Cranston instead.
She’s careful about how she frames these sentiments, understandably, because she considers the experience a net positive overall. But she also sees an opportunity missed in her time here, a chance to truly understand each other’s differences, for them to see she can be a woman, a soccer fan, a costume-wearer and a human being worthy of respect and power, all at the same time. She’s wanting more than she’s complaining. She’s not really complaining at all. If she could rewind, she would still come, only, perhaps, with reduced expectations.
“The biggest thing is that I love my husband,” she says. “But I’m not defined by him. We just enjoy being supportive, passionate Americans. Soccer fans. And, if we change anybody’s mind along the way, or expose them to a different way of life, that’s great.”
She smiles. But it’s sort of a forced smile, which is indicative of a World Cup defined by contrast, the difference between the image Qatar wants to present to the globe and what it’s really like, here, on the ground. Asnani didn’t find the country as restrictive as reports predicted. She never felt unsafe. But she also didn’t find the people as open as the government espoused. She landed somewhere in the middle, through neither her fault nor theirs, just stuck somewhere along a cultural divide that, for now, cannot be entirely bridged.
