History of the 6 Gulf teams participating in the Asian Cup in the continental championship (2)

The eighteenth edition of the Qatar 2023 Continental Championship will start tomorrow, which will be hosted by Doha from January 12 to February 10, with the participation of 24 teams, including five Gulf countries: Qatar (the host country), which came in the first group with China, Tajikistan, and Lebanon, while the UAE came in the third group, with Iran, Hong Kong, and Palestine, while the draw placed Iraq in the fourth group alongside Japan, Indonesia, and Vietnam, and Bahrain comes in the group. The fifth group is next to South Korea, Malaysia, and Jordan, while the sixth group brought together the Saudi and Omani brothers, in addition to Thailand and Kyrgyzstan.

During these lines, we will review the history of the five teams’ participation in the Asian Cup, as the Saudi team is the third most participating team in the Asian Cup tournaments over the past years, with 10 times, equally with Qatar, Kuwait and the Emirates, behind Iran and South Korea with 14 participations, then China with 12 participations.

During its crowning journey in the last edition of the Asian Cup in 2019 in the Emirates, the Qatar national team won all seven of its matches in the tournament, and conceded only one goal throughout the entire competition, and the beginning of Qatar wonderful journey was in the first round, with victory over Lebanon 2-0, North Korea 6-0, and Saudi Arabia. 2-0, before eliminating Iraq and South Korea by defeating them with the same score 1-0 in the eighth and quarter-finals, then achieving a broad victory over the Emirati team in the semi-finals 4-0, before winning the final match over Japan 3-1, for Qatar to win the title for the first time in its history, the irony is that the seven victories that the Qatari team achieved in the 2019 edition were more than what it achieved in all of its previous 32 matches in the Asian Nations, during which it achieved only 6 victories. In general, Qatar played 39 matches during 10 previous participations, during which it achieved 13 wins and 11 draws, while 15 losses, and its players scored 52 goals, and conceded 47 goals. The best achievement of the Qatari team before winning the title was reaching the quarter-finals, which was achieved in the 2000 and 2011 editions. While it was eliminated from the group stage in the remaining 7 participations.

While the UAE national team is participating for the 11th time in the Asian Nations and the sixth in a row, its best achievement in the tournament was its second place in the edition hosted by the UAE in 1996. It also succeeded in reaching the semi-finals twice in the 2015 edition in Australia, and the 2019 edition that it organized.

During the 44 matches that the Emirati team played in the Asian Nations, it won 15 matches, tied 11 and lost 18 matches, and its players were able to score 41 goals while conceding 59 goals.

As for Bahraini team, it played 6 editions of the Asian Cup, during which it played 23 matches, winning 5 of them, drawing 6 times and losing 12, scoring 29 goals while conceding 38 goals.

The first Bahraini participation in the Asian Cup came in 1988 in Qatar, while before that the team was absent for various reasons. Bahrain began its journey in the 1988 Asian Cup in Qatar, with two losses and two draws, placing it at the bottom of the second group, where it tied 0-0 with Kuwait and 1-1 with Saudi Arabia, and lost 0-1 in front of China and Syria.

The second participation was the most successful in the history of the Bahrain national team in the Continent Cup, in China in 2004, when it qualified for the semi-finals, and Bahrain collected 5 points from the first group with two draws 2-2 with China, 1-1 with Qatar, and a 3-1 victory over Indonesia, and the team needed Bahraini won on penalties to beat Uzbekistan in the quarter-finals after a thrilling 2-2 draw, but lost to defending champion Japan after extra time in the semi-finals 3-4, before losing in the bronze medal match 2-4 to Iran.

In the following three editions, from 2007 to 2015, the Bahrain national team was eliminated from the first round (groups), but it came back again to pass that stage in the UAE 2019 edition, after starting the journey with a 1-1 draw in the opening match with the UAE team, and despite losing 0-1 from Thailand in the match. In the second round, the victory with the same score over India led him to occupy third place and qualify among the best thirds behind the UAE and the Thai national team, but it lost in the eighth final to South Korea 1-2 and bid farewell to the tournament.

Alaa Hubail and Ismail Abdul Latif top Bahrain’s all-time top scorers in the Asian Cup with 5 goals each. Hubail scored all of his goals in the 2004 edition, including a goal in Indonesia and two braces against Uzbekistan and Japan, while Ismail Abdul Latif opened his international goals with Bahrain against South Korea in the 2007 edition. Then he scored 4 goals at once against India 2011 in a match that ended 5-2 for the Bahraini team.

While the Omani team participated in the Asian Nations Cup and recorded the first attendance in the edition that was held in 2004 in China, the most prominent result it achieved at the continental level was the quarter-finals in the Emirates 2019, and the Omani team appeared in four Asian Nations Cup tournaments out of 17 editions, in the 2004 edition, it was eliminated from the group stage, as well as the 2007 and 2015 editions. During the UAE 2019 edition, it qualified for the round of 16.

The Omani team played 13 matches in the Asian Cup, winning 3, drawing 3, and losing on 7 occasions, and was able to score 10 goals, while conceding 17 goals. Imad Al Hosani is the historical top scorer for the Omani team in the Asian Cup with 3 goals, all of which came in its first participation was in the 2004 edition, where it scored two goals in a 2-2 draw against Iran, and the winning goal against Thailand.