“Thailand Cup”: Oman loses to Tajikistan and bids farewell

The Omani national team lost to its Tajik counterpart, 0-1, on Saturday, in the semi-finals of the Thailand Football Cup, bidding farewell to the competition before the final match.

Sheridin Popoev scored the only goal of the match from a penalty kick in the second half, leading the Tajikistan national team to victory and securing their place in the final.

The match was held at the Sisaket Regional Stadium in Thailand, in a confrontation that had a historical character, as the two teams met for the first time 28 years ago, during the Asian Games in Bangkok in 1998, when their match ended in a 3-3 draw.

The first confrontation witnessed Majdi Shaaban, Jamal Bakhsh and Radwan Salem scoring the goals of the Omani team, while today’s match ended with Tajikistan prevailing by a goal.

The Moroccan national team achieved a broad victory over Niger, 5-1, in the third round of the African Cup of Nations qualifiers.

Yasser Zubairy scored the first goal for Morocco in the fourth minute, then Achraf Hakimi added a second goal in the 27th minute, and Mohamed Abdelrahmane reduced the difference for Niger in the 41st minute, before Hakimi responded with a third goal, and his second goal, in stoppage time for the first half.

In the 77th minute, Youssef En-Nesyri added the fourth goal, and Ayoub Oufkir scored the fifth goal in the last minute.

Morocco increased its lead in the first group with 9 points, 3 points ahead of runner-up Gabon, while Niger has 3 points, placing it in third place, while Lesotho is at the bottom of the group with no points.

Mohamed Salah became the all-time top scorer for the Egyptian national team after scoring a brace against Malawi in the African Cup of Nations qualifiers, raising his tally to 70, surpassing the previous record recorded in the name of his former coach, Hossam Hassan.

The 34-year-old spent most of the past decade breaking records in England, where he became Liverpool's all-time top scorer in the English Premier League, as well as the most goals-scoring African player in the history of the competition.

Salah, a Turkish Trabzonspor player, scored two goals in a 5-0 win over Malawi to surpass Hassan, whose number has stood for nearly three decades, and withstood generations of Egyptian strikers before Salah finally equaled him, in the first match the national team played after the local federation separated from coach Hassan.

Salah played today's match under the leadership of new coach Ali Maher, who took over from Hassan and led the team in his first match with the Egyptian national team.

Hassan scored 69 goals in 176 international matches between 1985 and 2006, confirming his place among the greatest strikers in Africa.

Hassan was a prominent figure in Egyptian football for more than two decades, as he won the African Cup of Nations three times, and contributed to the Egyptian national team qualifying for the 1990 World Cup, after an absence of 56 years.

On the other hand, Salah created a different, but no less important, legacy.

His goal from a penalty kick in stoppage time against Congo in 2017 won Egypt’s qualification for the World Cup for the first time in 28 years, and he also helped the Pharaohs’ team reach the final of the African Cup of Nations in the 2017 and 2021 editions.

He also contributed to Egypt's return to the 2026 World Cup, as his fourth goal in the finals made him Egypt's all-time leading scorer in the World Cup, confirming his status as the face of the awakening of Egyptian football over the past decade.

Hassan's international career spanned more than two decades, beginning with ending Egypt's long wait to appear in the World Cup in 1990, all the way to his contribution to winning the 2006 African Cup of Nations, the first title in an unprecedented series of three consecutive continental titles.

As for Salah, he has become a symbol of the modern era for the Egyptian national team, as he led the team’s return to the World Cup and became one of the biggest stars of the game in the world.