Bem Verbeek .. Engineer of Gulf 23 title for the Omani Red

The Omani Red was crowned with its second Gulf title in Gulf 23 hosted by Kuwait from December 22, 2017 to January 5, 2018 at Jaber Al-Ahmad International Stadium, with his loss in his first match against the UAE national team, with the result of a goal for nothing.

The position of the Omani Red seemed difficult, especially since the two confrontations that he was waiting for against the host Kuwait and the Saudi team, respectively, and here he needed the experience of his coach, who bet on him when he took over his leadership a year before the tournament, and in fact Bem Verbeck appeared confident in his capabilities even after the loss to the Emirates, and he promised the Omani fans with positive results in the upcoming confrontations.

The Dutchman was able to fulfill his promise when he achieved two consecutive victories in the group stage, the first against the host Kuwait with the goal of captain Ahmed Kanoo, and the second against Saudi Arabia with two goals scored by striker Saeed Al-Ruzaiqi, so that the Omani Reds qualified for the semi-finals of the tournament with well-deserve performance, relying on the experience of his coach.

The task has not yet been accomplished, and the Omani team faced Bahrain in a very difficult match to qualify for the final, and Bem Verbeck confirmed once again the skill of his leadership of the Omani battalion and succeeded in overcoming Bahrain with a clean goal, to face the Emirates in the final.

Here, the Omani fans gained more confidence in their team and coach, and crawled strongly towards the Kuwaiti capital to support Al-Ahmar in the final. The Omani and Emirati fans met a few days before the match to weave an aesthetic scene in the Mubarakiya market and in the atmosphere of the sky of Kuwait, and encouragement chants erupted in a scene that reflects the manifestations of Gulf cohesion and the glare of the championship and its position among the Gulf brothers, which led everyone to believe that the final would be exciting, noisy and competitive between Oman and the UAE, who met for the second time in the final, after they met in the 18th Gulf Cup final in Abu Dhabi, when the Emirati Whites won the cup.

Bem Ferbek entered the match and in his calculations faced the group stage that he lost against the Emirati Al White, and the two teams played a balanced confrontation, and Bem Virbek was able to lead the Omani team to match his Emirati counterpart until the 87th minute of the match, when the Kuwaiti referee Ali Shaaban awarded a penalty kick that held the fans of the Omani team breathless goalkeeper Fayez Al-Rashidi restores hope after standing in front of the Emirati team star Omar Abdul Rahman’s shot, so the confrontation went to extra time, then to penalty shootouts, which the Omani Reds decided in his favour, 5-4, and crowned the second Gulf title in a surprise calculated for Dutch coach Pim Verbeck.

Who is Bim Verbeck?

Dutchman Bem Verbeek was born on March 12, 1956 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and died on November 28, 2019 at the age of 63 after a struggle with illness. His last training assignment was with the Omani Red when he announced his departure in 2017 for health reasons.

Verbeek spent his entire career as a player with Sparta Rotterdam, but retired at the age of twenty-five, and began his coaching career by coaching Dutch clubs, including the ancient Feyenoord, and then Asian. Then he worked as an assistant to his compatriot Guus Hiddink with the South Korean team in the 2002 World Cup when the Koreans achieved the best result for an Asian team in the World Cup by achieving fourth place on their soil. He also worked as an assistant to his fellow countryman, Dick Advocaat, in the 2006 World Cup with the same team. Then he took over the task of coaching the Korean national team and led it to achieve third place in the 2007 Asian Cup.

Then he led Australia to the 2010 World Cup, then worked as a technical director in the Moroccan Federation, winning the silver of the African U-23 Cup in 2011, beating Algeria and Egypt in the semi-finals, to reach the 2012 Olympics in London.
He signed with the Oman national team in 2016 after failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, and under his supervision, Al-Ahmar won the Gulf Cup in Kuwait in 2017, to win his first national team title.
After his exit with the Oman national team from the playoffs against Iran in the 2019 Asian Cup in the UAE, he announced the end of his career as a coach.