No wonder the Asian Football Confederation bans all talk of politics at its competitions. Plenty of games on the continent come with off-pitch baggage: the Korean Derby, Iran v Iraq and Vietnam v Cambodia to name just a few. But, traditionally, Saudi Arabia v Qatar has not been anything to write home about – not until now. These days one cannot write home to Riyadh if one is in Doha and vice versa and that is just one reason why Thursday’s Asian Cup clash between the two is eagerly awaited.

Some have been calling the meeting in Abu Dhabi, capital of the host nation the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the “Blockade Derby”. The UAE – along with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt – cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar in 2017. The claim was that, among other things, Doha was guilty of supporting terrorism.

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There is no political solution in sight and there have been football consequences. When Qatar were thrashing North Korea 6-0 last Sunday, the only positive for the small band of DPRK cheerleaders was that there were virtually no Qatari fans to rub their noses in it. The usual 45-minute flight from Doha to Abu Dhabi has become a pain, and that is if there is admittance at all. Even when the AFC forced the UAE to host Qatari clubs in the 2018 Asian Champions League, it has not always gone smoothly. Wesley Sneijder and his Al-Gharafa teammates took 18 hours to get there last February.

Though games are hard to watch on television in the UAE as the rights holder, BeIN Sports, a Qatari broadcaster, is involved in a dispute with the Saudi-based BeoutQ, which it accuses of pirating its content, for the most part games have gone reasonably well for an improving Qatar team.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Qatar players congratulate Boualem Khoukhi (third from left) on scoring in the 6-0 win over North Korea, but there were virtually no Qatari fans there to enjoy it. Photograph: Giuseppe Cacace/AFP/Getty Images

Both Saudi Arabia and Qatar have done well so far and go into the game with two wins each, meaning they have already qualified for the last 16. That may take off some of the edge and both camps have been trying to play it all down, saying there is little prospect of a repeat of past episodes such as the 2017 Gulf Cup when the Saudi and Emirati teams withdrew from press conferences that contained Qatari broadcasters.

The Qatar spokesperson, Ali Hassan al-Salat, was very positive before the game. “Everything has gone smoothly since we arrived in the Emirates,” he said, adding that the six-hour journey was not too bad. “We are looking forward to the Saudi Arabia game.”

Handshakes will take place, say officials, and the game will be played in the right spirit. “We are footballers not politicians and we always respect fair play,” Turki al-Awad, a board member of the Saudi Arabia Football Federation, told the Guardian. “This is just a football game. We are a professional team and we play Qatari teams all the time.”

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Al-Salat agrees that not shaking hands had not crossed Qatari minds. “Football is a message of peace. The slogan of the competition is ‘bringing Asia together’ and we are going to follow that during the competition.”

The message on the field may be one of peace and fair play but off it the issues are unlikely to be solved soon. “The notion that football can help is delusionary,” James Dorsey, an expert in Middle Eastern football politics, said. “Football can only be a factor in an environment that is conducive to a solution. It can’t create that environment.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Saudi Arabia fans at their match against North Korea at the Maktoum Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Stadium in Dubai. Photograph: Karim Sahib/AFP/Getty Images

Dorsey sees the blockade as an unsuccessful attempt to force Qatar to follow the regional line set by the Saudis and its allies. “It has failed to break Qatar’s resolve and/or garner international support.”

While Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE are all in the knockout stages of the Asian Cup and all entertain notions of winning, the shadow cast over the region by the 2022 World Cup grows larger. The Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, told the Dubai newspaper Al Ittihad earlier this month that the UAE and Saudi could host games if the tournament is expanded, as he desires, from 32 to 48 teams as tiny Qatar could not handle so many (though he admitted there were issues to sort out first).

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That is certainly true even without expansion. It remains to be seen what would happen to the blockade if its instigators qualify for 2022. Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Cairo may have some thinking to do if so, though it is unlikely they would remove themselves and their football-loving fans from the World Cup.

Qatar insists there will be no issues with Saudi Arabia, UAE and Egypt coming to Doha. “The blockade has had no effect on Qatari football and everything is under control for now and for 2022,” Al-Salat said. “We will receive every team that qualifies and they will feel welcome. This is our tradition and our philosophy. We respect all teams and we will show that on Thursday.”