The big night is approaching.

Over the past two weeks, it's rained in the desert. The stands have rarely been full. Big names have pulled out, or never showed up to begin with.

But now the Qataris are revving up their 4x4s and readying the party poppers.

With tiny Qatar in the finals of both soccer and basketball, the home team is preparing for a big finale to the first Asian Games ever held in the Arab world, an event that the Qataris are hoping will prove they should be given yet a bigger prize,the Summer Olympics of 2016.

"This is very exciting," said Hussein Al Ajji, who, like just about everybody else here it seems, works for Qatar Petroleum Corp. "I've been following the games' every step. I couldn't get tickets (to the soccer final), so I'll be watching at home with the kids. They don't understand what's going on, but they're excited, too."

The Asian Games have,if for only a couple of weeks,transformed Qatar.

The streets of Doha, the capital of this oil-rich emirate on the Persian Gulf, were filled to overflowing earlier this week with revelers after Qatar beat defending champion Iran to win its first-ever berth in the soccer finals at the Asian Games.

In a sight rarely seen in these parts, young Qataris filled the main strips, spinning their wheels, waving the country's marroon-and-white flag and pumping their fists into the air. It was a dry celebration,Qatar is a strictly no-alcohol nation.

The win was a much-needed highpoint for the games.

Though organizers claim to be selling upward of 30,000 tickets a day, stands at most of the events have been at best half full. In a country that is mostly desert, repeated downpours of rain have dampened the festivities. And the competition was even marred by the first fatality involving a competitor in Asian Games history when a horse fell on top of its South Korean rider on a mud-slicked equestrian course.

Still, organizers say their multibillion dollar investment was well spent.

"We think these games will put Qatar on the map," said Sheik Saoud bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani, secretary general of the Qatar Olympic Committee.

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And getting that final gold would be the biggest thing to happen to Qatar since, well, ever.

"Doha is a quiet place," said Saoud Al Malik, another Qatar Petroleum worker. "Normally, by 10 o'clock everybody is in bed and all the stores are closed. Now, we stay up until 12, or even 2."

Al Malik said he and his friends will all be cheering for the home team.

"Of course," he said. "It will be a big, big celebration."

Rooting for the home team is a complicated affair here.

Less than 750,000 people live in Qatar, and most of them aren't Qataris. The Qataris make up only about 40 percent of the population, the rest of which is comprised mainly of Pakistanis, Indians, Iranians and Filipinos, who do most of the work on short-term contracts.

Their sporting allegiances often reflect how much of the economic pie they are able to share.

Ommar Binaf, an Indian manager who has lived in Qatar for six years, said he will be cheering for the local team when they play against Iraq in Friday's gold medal match.

"I took 10 days off to follow the games," he said while visiting a park along Doha's central waterfront, where a big TV screen was showing the tennis competition live and vendors sold perfumes, soap and roasted nuts from traditional Bedouin tents. "I cheered for India, but they didn't do so well. So now I am cheering for Qatar."

Binaf said he expects Doha to come alive if the team comes through.

"They will be out in their cars, doing their stunts," he said. "After the semifinal, I couldn't get home for an hour."

At the other end of the guest worker spectrum, not everyone is as fired up about Qatar's big finale.

Joey Dueza won't be watching Friday's game.

"I don't have a TV," he said while on duty at the Cinnabon pastry shop at one of Doha's many malls. "All I do is work. I've been here for one year and 11 months. I have a two-year contract and I am counting the days until I can go back home to the Philippines."

Even so, he did say he will be rooting for the home team.

"Sure, I hope they win."