The Saudi national team took the lead in the first group of the 27th Gulf Cup tournament in Jeddah, with a full mark, after its exciting victory over Iraq 2-0 in the final round of the group qualifiers.
The Greens will face “next Saturday” in the semi-finals, the runner-up of the second group in the tournament, which will be decided on Wednesday through the match between the UAE and Qatar.
Al-Akhdar raised its score to 9 points after defeating Kuwait 1-0, Oman 3-0, and Iraq 2-0, respectively.
After its victory over Kuwait 3-1, Oman will have to wait for a draw between itself and Iraq (4 points each) to decide who qualifies for the semi-finals, which will be held on Tuesday at the Intercontinental Hotel in Jeddah.
Saudi Arabia's two goals came against Iraq in the second half, scored by Abdullah Al Salem and Abdullah Al Hamdan.
The Gulf Football Association affirmed its continued and permanent support for the President of the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), Gianni Infantino, and will continue this support during the coming period.
In an official statement, the Gulf Federation praised the role played by Infantino in leading the International Federation and supporting the process of developing football at various levels.
Infantino was subjected to severe criticism after presenting his plan to privatize the commercial rights of FIFA tournaments, most notably the World Cup, which prompted him to withdraw from it a few days after presenting the idea last July.
The European Football Association (UEFA) is leading the attack on Infantino and the attempt to oust the FIFA president, who has held his position since 2016.
It is noteworthy that Infantino will run in the FIFA presidential elections for the fourth time next March, while his rivals have a deadline of November 18 to propose an alternative candidate.
The 27th Gulf Cup tournament in Jeddah, on Wednesday, will witness a heavy-caliber confrontation, bringing together the UAE and Qatar, in the second group.
The match is of great importance as it is the summit match to break up the partnership and determine the leader of the group, after both teams succeeded in officially qualifying for the semi-finals with full marks, with 6 points from two consecutive victories.
Leading the group gives its owner a great moral and organizational advantage to avoid facing the leaders of the first group in the golden square, which puts the two teams under pressure to provide a high-level technical performance befitting the reputation of Gulf and Asian football.
The UAE national team enters the match in high spirits, after achieving two victories. The first came at the expense of Yemen by four, before defeating the Bahrain national team, the host of the match, and eliminating it from the tournament.
The UAE national team became the highest scoring team in the tournament with 7 goals, and it also kept a clean sheet, which reflects the ideal technical and physical readiness of the team at the present time.
On the other hand, the Qatari team will try to enter the match with its usual calm, as it began its tournament campaign by defeating Bahrain with two unanswered goals in the first round, then narrowly defeated Yemen with a clean goal in the second round.
The UAE's performance in the first two matches gave the team wide praise under the leadership of their Croatian coach, Zalatko Dalic, who achieved many achievements with his country's national team previously, and seeks to impose a new reality with the UAE national team.
On the other hand, the Qatar national team played the tournament with a somewhat conservative performance, trying to save its efforts for the next stages of the tournament after qualifying for the semi-finals.
After the fate of the group is decided through that match, the first-place team will play in the semi-finals with the second-place team in the first group, while the second-place team will play a match with the home team and the leader of the first group, the Saudi national team.
In the historical record of the confrontations between the two teams, the Qatari team, which won the title three times, most recently in 2014, appears to have been superior to the Emirati team, which won the title twice, the last of which was in 2013.
The two teams met in 21 matches in the Gulf Cup, the Qatar team won 9 matches, the UAE team won 5 matches, and won 6 matches.
Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal City Stadium will also host a confrontation of a purely moral nature that brings together the Bahraini national team and its Yemeni counterpart.
The two teams enter the match after it was confirmed that they were officially eliminated from the calculations for qualifying for the semi-finals, after each of them received two successive defeats in the first and second rounds against Qatar and the Emirates, and the two tickets to the golden square from this group were limited to the Emirates and Qatar teams, who scored 6 full points.
Although the confrontation has lost its numerical importance in the calculations of promotion, it carries great importance for the two teams, which are looking for an honorable victory that will avoid them ending the tournament at the bottom of the standings and reconcile their angry fans.
The Bahraini national team, which entered this edition as the defending champion after winning the previous edition in Kuwait, is going through extremely complex technical and administrative circumstances and a series of sharp media and public criticism.
The Bahraini “Red” began their campaign with a disappointing first loss to Qatar with two unanswered goals, in a match that witnessed serious defensive errors that cost the team points in the match. Croatian coach Dragan Talajic did not succeed in rectifying the situation during the second round, and then suffered another defeat, this time by 3-0, against the UAE.
On the other hand, the Yemeni team enters the confrontation under similar circumstances in terms of results, but different in terms of the ceiling of expectations. The team had begun its journey in the tournament with a heavy loss to the UAE 1-4 in the first round, in a match in which the technical and physical difference between the two sides became clear.
Despite receiving a heavy defeat in the first match, the Yemeni team showed a strong reaction and strong resistance in the second round against its Qatari counterpart, before losing by a single goal in a match that witnessed the brilliance of Mohammed Aman, the Yemeni goalkeeper.
While the match will be a last opportunity for Croatian coach Talajic to reorganize the team and achieve a moral victory, it will be an investment in the high spirits of the Yemeni side, after the team performed well despite the defeat in the first two matches.
Leading the group gives its owner a great moral and organizational advantage to avoid facing the leader of the first group in the golden square.
