Yemen out of Gulf Cup after Qatar loss but sign off with five-goal flourish
Yemen are out of the Arabian Gulf Cup after a 1-0 defeat by Qatar in Jeddah.
Yusuf Abdurisag scored the only goal on 27 September at King Abdullah Sports City Stadium. The result left Yemen unable to reach the semi-finals with one group game still to play, according to The Guardian.
The Gulf Cup is an eight-nation tournament held this time in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Teams start in groups, with only the top sides going through to the knockout rounds. Qatar used this win to move top of Group B.
Qatar are coached by Julen Lopetegui, the former Spain and Real Madrid coach. The Peninsula reported the 1-0 win secured their place in the last four. The United Arab Emirates were due to face Bahrain later that same day, according to Arab News.
Yemen had started badly. They lost 4-0 to the United Arab Emirates in their opening match. They finished with noise, beating Bahrain 5-2 in their final group game.
History was against them. Before this 27th edition, Yemen were the only one of the eight teams never to have won the tournament. They had also never moved beyond the group stage.
The wider story is stark. Yemen have not played a home game since a 2-1 win over Palestine in Sanaa in 2012. Head coach Noureddine Ould Ali told The Guardian the political situation in the country is not stable.
Ould Ali said his players worry about events at home while they are in Saudi Arabia. They hope their families are OK. It is a short sentence. It says a lot.
Preparation was piecemeal. Ould Ali said Yemen held a camp with local players in Aden before joining the rest of the squad in Jeddah. He said the domestic league stopped for a long time, restarted this year and has finished the first half of the season.
Ould Ali knows difficult jobs. He spent more than four years as a Palestine assistant coach before leading Palestine from 2018 to 2021. He now leads a Yemen squad split between home-based players and those based elsewhere.
There is something to aim at. Yemen will play in the Asian Cup next January, the main national team tournament for Asia, for only the second time in their history.
What makes this stand out is how it ended. A team with no home stadium, little recent league football and a rushed build-up scored five in one game. They go home early from Jeddah. They go to January with proof they can hit back.
