Oman's Chances At The Soccer Gulf Cup - Abu Dhabi

The much awaited soccer Gulf Cup in Abu Dhabi, UAE will commence on the 17th of January, 2007. The opening match will feature the biggest rivals in the region, the Sultanate of Oman and the host country, the United Arab Emirates.

The setting for this gulf cup has been pretty much identical to the 2004 one in Qatar in which 8 countries have been divided into 2 groups. Oman has been fixed in group A that also includes the UAE, Yemen and Kuwait.

At first glance, it looks like the Sultanate of Oman has finally managed to evade the group of death and has, this time around, fallen into the easier group out of the two. That being said, it is now faced with a very difficult task of battling it out with the host country in the opening match of the tournament.

In a recent survey on SoccerBlaze!, 66% of the participants voted that the Sultanate would acquire either third or fourth berth. 27% responded that Oman will exit from the group stages and 5% said that it will reach the final match, which will be a repeat of 2004. Let us have a closer look at group A and analyse our chances of success.

Sultanate of Oman's Preparations

Our preparation for the Gulf Cup started (or should have started) after the match against UAE in the Asian Cup qualifiers. We lost 0-3 to Jordan in Amman in the qualifiers and 2-0 to a youth Iraqi team and 1-0 in the Asian Games in Doha. I am sorry, I couldn't resist being sarcastic. Our beloved coach Milan Macala has set up a training camp in Qatar which, according to officials, includes a match against the Qatari national team.

United Arab Emirates soccer team

Just like Oman, UAE has never won the Gulf Cup. They however have the home advantage this time and an excellent coach, who also happens to be the one that performed wonders with Senegal leading them to the quarter finals of the 2002 World Cup, Bruno Metsu. With these factors in mind, the UAE seems to have a more than decent chance of qualification to the knockout stages of the competition.

Sultanate of Oman's last two encounters with the UAE were in the Asian Cup qualification rounds. Oman lost 1-0 away from home in UAE but then redeemed the loss with a 2-1 win in Muscat. It is worth mentioning that the UAE's performance has declined considerably since 2004. The Sultanate has a decent chance of beating the UAE but my vote unfortunately goes to the Emirates as I believe the opening match, home advantage and the crowd will all work in the favour of the UAE and prove to be too overwhelming for Oman.

Kuwait soccer team

On the 20th of January, Oman will meet Kuwait, in a repeat of the opening match of the Gulf Cup in Kuwait in 2003. Kuwait are the competition's record title winners with 9 titles in their pockets, winning 7 out of the first 10 Gulf Cups. Kuwait has however slipped out of contention in the last few years and most recently by failing to qualify to the Asian Cup in 2007, losing out to Australia and Bahrain. Football in Kuwait seems to be in its worse ever state and calling it a crisis would not be an exaggeration.

I believe Oman has the capacity to beat Kuwait and I hope that they do. I also believe that Kuwait will come into this match with 3 points already in hand following its match against Yemen. Therefore, anything but a win against Kuwait means the end of our venture in Abu Dhabi.

Yemen soccer team

Yemen is the weakest team in the region and have played only 2 Gulf Cup tournaments to date. Their best two results in the competition were a draw against Bahrain and a draw against, yes you guessed it right, the Sultanate of Oman. Throwing Yemen into the mix up does however cause one or two problems to the other teams in the group if it managed to pull out shocking results like the ones against Oman and Bahrain, respectively.

Summary

I am sorry but I just can't think of Oman as the winners of the Gulf Cup and I think you can excuse me for not comprehending this fact being an Omani that is used to the first place backwards. However, I believe Oman can make it to the knockout stages and ultimately to the third versus fourth match. Once again this is all dependent upon which Oman side shows up in Abu Dhabi, is it the side that were runner ups in Qatar in 2004? Or is it the side that was and easy prey for Jordan, Iraq and China in 2006?

Saied Mohammed is the owner and co-founder of SoccerBlaze.com, a privately owned Football/Soccer Blog with emphasis on football news, articles and discussions from the Sultanate of Oman.

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