Gulf 7.. Iraqi domination of the cup and titles

The Gulf Cup competitions took place in its seventh edition in the Sultanate of Oman, from March 9 to March 28, 1984, and all matches were held at the Police Stadium, with the participation of 7 teams, Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman.

The tournament was played in one group system, where each team played 6 matches, and Iraq topped the group with 9 points, through 4 cases of victory, draw and loss, while Al-Annabi of Qatar came with the same balance of 9 points, through 4 occasions of victory, draw and loss, but the Lions of Mesopotamia scored 11 goals and conceded 4 goals, while Al-Annabi scored 9 and conceded 5 goals, and a penalty shootout decided the title for Iraq in the play-off match, with a penalty shootout 4/3, after the original time ended in a 1/1 draw, then the Saudi Al-Akhdar came third with 7 points, also ahead of the Emirates. It ranked fourth on goal difference, and Bahrain ranked fifth with the same score as Kuwait, with 4 points, but on goal difference, while Oman came at the bottom of the standings with two points from two draws.

51 goals were scored, which is the same number of goals in the previous tournament, but 7 of them were in the play-off match, including 5 from penalty shootouts.

Iraqi striker Hussein Saeed achieved the title of top scorer in the tournament with seven goals, and he also won the title of best player in the tournament, and his colleague, goalkeeper Fatah Nassib, won the title of best goalkeeper.

The first goal in the tournament was scored by Bahraini Khalil Shuwaier, and the fastest goal was scored by Emirati Adnan Al-Taliani in the fourth minute of the UAE-Qatar match.

The matches of the seventh round witnessed three cases of expulsion in the stadium, the first when the referee of the Iraq-Saudi Arabia match raised the red card in the face of Saudi defender Salman Namchan Al-Dosari, and the second in the Kuwait-Saudi Arabia match by Kuwaiti defender Adel Abbas, and the third was the share of Omani defender Khamis Obaid for receiving two yellow cards.

The first penalty kick in the tournament was awarded to Kuwait against Saudi Arabia, from which Basil Abdel Nabi scored the equalizing goal for his team.

Abdul Qadir Hassan, the goalkeeper of the UAE national team, kept his goal clean for 246 minutes without any goals entering his own net. As for the record, Ahmed Trabelsi, the goalkeeper of Kuwait, set it in the third round.

The late Ali bin Nasser, captain of Oman, took the opportunity to hold the seventh Arabian Gulf Football Cup to announce his retirement from playing, after he represented the Sultanate in many tournaments in which he was a distinguished player.

The opening of the tournament was attended by the President of the International Federation at the time, Brazilian João Havelange, and the President of the Malaysian Asian Confederation, Dato Hamzah.

Supervision of the training of the teams participating in the tournament was done by: Amo Baba (Iraq), Heshmat Mohajerani (UAE), Sebastiao (Bahrain), Eversto (Qatar), Paulo Hickey (Sultanate), Brazilian Roberto (Kuwait), and Zagallo (Saudi Arabia), and he was excluded during the session and was replaced by Khalil Al-Zayani.