Friday, January 20, 2023 – 4:10 PM
DUBAI, 20th January, 2020 (WAM) — After two full weeks of intense competition, the curtain has fallen on the activities of the Arab Gulf Cup Football Championship, “Gulf 25”, by crowning the Iraqi national team, the host of the tournament, with the fourth title in the history of its participation in the tournament.
The Iraqi national team won the title 35 years following winning its last previous title in the tournament in 1988.
The final match witnessed the height of excitement and challenge, until the Iraqi national team decided it in its favor with a valuable victory 3-2 over the Omani team, which struggled a lot until the final whistle of extra time, which the two teams resorted to following the end of the original time with a 1-1 draw.
This match is the only one, in the knockout stage, that reached extra time, as the results of the two semi-final matches were decided in regular time.
By reaching the fourth title, the Iraqi national team ranked second in the list of the teams that won the Gulf title the most, following the Kuwaiti national team (10 titles).
The tournament witnessed 15 matches, at Basra International Stadium (8 matches) and the Olympic Port (7 matches), during which 39 goals were scored (including two own goals), with an average of 2.6 goals per match.
The Iraqi national team players Ayman Hussein and Ibrahim Baish topped the list of scorers with 3 goals each.
Match referees awarded 11 penalty kicks during the tournament, 7 of which were goals, while 4 other kicks were missed.
The number of cards in the tournament reached 54 yellow cards, in addition to a single red card obtained by Hamad Al-Qallaf, the Kuwait national team player, once morest Bahrain in the third round of the second group matches.
The UAE team is the least likely to receive warnings in the first round (0 cards) and the Saudi team in the second round (0 cards).
All the matches of the tournament scored goals, except for the opening match between the teams of Iraq and Oman, which ended in a goalless draw, while there were 3 matches that witnessed the scoring of the largest number of goals (5 goals), represented in Iraq’s victory over Yemen 5-0, and Oman’s victory over Yemen 3- 2, with the same result, Iraq’s victory over Oman in the final match.
The Iraqi national team has the strongest lines of attack and defense in the tournament, as its players scored 12 goals, and conceded 3 goals, during 5 matches, including two goals in the final match.
Zakaria Mohieldin / Walid Farouk
