The UAE reached the semi-finals of the 27th Gulf Cup in Jeddah, after defeating Bahrain, the defending champion, 3-0, in the second group competitions.
Othman Kamara opened the scoring for the UAE national team in the 30th minute of the match, while his teammates Guillerme Bala and Ali Saleh added the second and third goals in the 66th and 88th minutes, respectively. With that result, the UAE national team, which began its campaign in the group with a huge 4-0 victory over Yemen, sat at the top of the standings with 6 points.
The UAE national team is superior on goal difference to its closest competitor, the Qatar national team, which is on par with it on the same score, to rise together to the semi-finals in the tournament, and their next match will be in the final round of the group, in order to determine the champion and runner-up of the group. On the other hand, the Bahrain national team, which lost 0-2 to Qatar in the opening round, remained without a score of points, officially bidding farewell to the competition along with the Yemen national team, at the bottom of the standings, before their confrontation, which will be a final round.
It is noteworthy that the group leader will meet in the semi-finals with the runner-up of Group Two, which includes Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Kuwait, while the runner-up will play with the leader of the other group.
Tariq Salman, the Qatari national team player, expressed his happiness over the win over Yemen with a goal to none and the qualification to the semi-finals of the Gulf Cup “Gulf 27”, noting that not taking advantage of the opportunities made the confrontation more difficult until its final minutes.
Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat after the match, Salman said: “Praise be to God in any case. The match was difficult, and we had many opportunities, but we did not take advantage of them from the beginning. If we had succeeded in settling the match early and scoring goals, that would have helped us a lot, even in terms of making changes and resting some players, but we were not successful in that, and we made the match somewhat difficult for ourselves.”
He added: “Possession was in our favor, as were the chances, but the match remained open until the last minute, and we needed to focus so that the Yemeni team did not take advantage of one of the opportunities and score a goal that would put them back in the match.”
Jordan blew its lead to draw 1-1 with its host Syria in a friendly match, on Sunday, in preparation for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup, after Jean Mustafa scored a goal in the second half to cancel out Ali Alwan’s goal.
Syria almost took the lead in the 22nd minute after Jordanian goalkeeper Alec Samir, who was born in the United States, made a mistake in dealing with a long pass from the middle of the field, but the ball deflected off the goal line.
Striker Alwan was able to give Jordan the lead 7 minutes before the break, after receiving a pass from his colleague Odeh Al Fakhoury, the Egyptian Pyramids player, and fired a shot with his left foot from outside the penalty area that landed in the lower left corner of goalkeeper Elias Hadiya.
Jordan's control continued at the beginning of the second half, but Syria's Mahmoud Al-Aswad was able to lead a counterattack and prepare the ball for his teammate Mustafa, who took possession of the ball, penetrated into the penalty area and shot from close range to score the equalizer in the 52nd minute.
Jordan plays in the second group of the Asian Cup alongside Bahrain, North Korea, and Uzbekistan, and Syria competes in the third group with Iran, China, and Kyrgyzstan.
The tournament will be held in Saudi Arabia from January 7th to February 5th.
