This year's World Cup in Qatar is already shaping up to be a special event.
The worldwide event, which will be the first to be held in a Muslim nation in the Middle East, has been rescheduled from the summer to the colder months of November and December due to the intense heat. Matches will be held in stadiums with air conditioning.
Now, the national squad is also adopting a novel strategy for training by spending six months at a training camp together.
Before facing Ecuador on November 21 in their opening Group A encounter, Felix Sanchez's team will play a series of friendlies with the 27-member roster they assembled last month.
Prior to travelling to Austria, where they will compete in a four-team competition against Jamaica, Morocco, Ghana, and other World Cup participants, the initial portion of the camp was held in Spain.
A source from one of the Qatar Super League (QSL) teams told BBC Sport that while the notion is not entirely absurd, it is still an odd thing to do.
"It is just too long; they ought to perform it for a shorter period of time. It might be challenging mentally to remove participants from competitive games.
"Staying together for so long is difficult. The athletes could elect to end the camp early due to mental exhaustion.
The inspiration for the notion appears to come from 20 years ago, when South Korea, one of the co-hosts of the World Cup, trained for five months before making an unexpected run to the semifinals, where they were heartbreakingly defeated by Germany.
Prior to hosting the competition, a concerted effort will be made to develop teamwork and understanding and work on tactics.
However, clubs in the domestic QSL will be without their star players for the first seven games, depriving players like Almoez Ali, a striker for Al-Duhail, and Akram Afif, a winger for champions Al-Sadd, of opportunities to participate in competitive games.
The insider continued, "Not playing competitively is the biggest negative. "In friendly, there is nothing to gain or lose. But because they are not as good individually, playing as a group allows them to play more firmly and with a stronger sense of identity.
"Although they can invite their family to remain and have some spare time with them or enable them to travel back to Qatar for a few days, they are not required to train constantly.
If not, it will resemble an army camp, and this is not the national attitude.
In their World Cup group, Qatar will also play Senegal (25 November) and the Netherlands (29 November).
Following objections from fan organizations concerned with human rights, Championship team Watford called off a friendly match against Qatar scheduled to take place in Austria last month.
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