I saw a bit of the Iraq - Sudan game, and when Iraq went 1:0 up so early I did think that the game was over and that Sudan wouldn't have it in them to win it. Was surprised though when they scored just minutes later. The Iraqi goal from the corner was almost comical with the keeper punching the ball into his own player for the Iraqi to capatilise. The Sudan goal was a brilliant header.
no, I care. i wanted Saudi Arabia to win this tournament. anyway good experience for the young players
Young Players..Eisa Mahyani, Sahlawi, Abdul Majeed Abdullah and the list goes on..You find them young....
when did I say or write all of the players are young ? it's time for you to get off my back. anyway , Morocco defeated Iraq 2 to 1
on goalzz.com It lists Morocco and Sudan as B teams and Egypy as Olympic. Wikipedia puts Sudan as B and Morocco as Local/B. And Libya was gonna send their U-21 but then decided to send the senior team. So Bahrain, Yemen, Kuwait, Palestine and Lebanon are the only First teams? Do we have anyone here from those countries who can confirm? Another weird thing is that FIFA lists Moroccos games in the arab cup. I know if the B team is used it doesn't count as an official FIFA Game like when England B lost to Belarus 2-1 Squad List: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Arab_Nations_Cup_squads For the guy who wanted an English source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Arab_Nations_Cup http://www.goalzz.com/main.aspx?c=8300&cm=i Hilal guy who was talking about the Prize Money. The winner will receive USD$1million, the runner-up will receive $600K, the third placed team will receive $300k and the other participating football associations will receive $200k each. The Arab Cup U-20 starts today in Jordan. While U-17 started 2 days ago in Tunisia http://www.goalzz.com/main.aspx?c=8264&stage=1 http://www.goalzz.com/main.aspx?c=8426
Someone should of told Zico we had a record to uphold and he should field the strongest XI. Should of had another penalty earlier in the game and the defence should not of let those 2 goals happen they should of closed the Moroccan players down. Also under Zico we lost for the first time to Lebanon didn't see the squad he fielded in that game but if he gets us to 2014 it wont matter. Palestines draw with Saudi was there best result ever against Saudi.
Libya vs Saudi Arabia and Iraq receive their first defeat in the history of this tourny. coming next: Saudi Arabia vs Iraq Libya vs Morocco
I have bad news for the saudis. Just did the caalculations and it seems the saudis will soon start hitting the 110ish spot (108th most likely in the next month's ranking). Never seen an Asian team slide so fast without being at war or some conflict. At this rate the saudis will fall even lower than Bermuda and Sudan! Khalijees should just give up football. Qatar, Saudi, Bahrain and UAE are all above the century mark. This wouldn't be any problem if they weren't spending truck loads of cash!!! Best stadiums, best coaches, best salaries... and they're barely better than Bermuda lol Edit: Guyana will be ranked higher in next month's ranking. Now can somebody tell me where or what Guyana is?
lol but to be fair, Iraq defeating Saudi Arabia isnt much new or shocking. Iraq is significantly and considerably better than Saudi Arabia and have been for quite some time. But Saudi loosing to a war-torn country like Libya on their own ground is a bit of a new low.
And Morocco crowned champions in the first final to be contested by two African sides. 3:1 on penalites after a 1:1 draw. None of the previous championships have been played in Africa, so maybe the next one can to break even more ground.
Most number of teams to take part in an Arab Cup is 12. This competition has potential to be a good 16 team tournament. They could give the top 14 ranked teams a bye with the bottom 8 playing a qualifying round with 2 teams going through. Currently the bottom 8 (according to Fifa rankings) would consist of Mauritania, Djibouti, Comoros, Somalia, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Yemen. 2 Groups of 4 and group winners going through. Or if you want to punish the teams who didn't take part this year give the 11 teams who participated in this edition a bye. Also terrible planning by UAFA. Egypt had a African cup of nations qualifier during this tournament and they put it in between world cup qualifiers which made some teams use this as a chance to test new players and tactics.
This months fifa rankings have Saudi at 101. Fifa are not counting Libya's games maybe cause they think Libya sent their U21 team which they were going to. The Iraq game will be counted next month but if you count it now they will drop to 107.
The truth is that the Arab Cup is never taken seriously by many people even in the Arab World as can be confirmed by the empty crowds/spectators, lack of advertising and trial players. Half the teams that play are there because there's nothing else to really do and look at it as an "all-expense paid inviation" bonding experience, while the rest most probably like Iraq, Lebanon etc take advantage of the games and view it as practice for more serious competitions cuh as the continung Asian WC qualifiers. I think more people actually watched the repeat of Arab Idol yesterday instead of the game.
No need to be sorry about it. As long as our national team is dominated by idiotic Qadsia SC players, there's no hope for us. The Qadsia SC monopoly in Kuwaiti football -- as in other sports -- is the reason behind our sporting failures. There's so much corruption around here that I just don't know where to begin. Bring the right people to these sports federations again and we'll pick up from where we've left off, many years ago. On the bright side, at least we're not splashing money into our sports leagues/teams. It's not embarrassing to lose, when reality is we're not spending 1/100th of the money other countries are spending on sports, and yet we're still not far behind them in our progress during these tournaments and World Cup qualifications. To be honest, Kuwait has other issues that need the added attention. Football is way down the ladder of care and rightly so, until our other (political and constitutional) priorities are taken care of. In the meantime, our sports bodies will continue to be guided by the wrong set of people -- unfortunately! As for the coach, Goran isn't much of a tactician, and never was. The players were mostly behind why Kuwait won two tournaments back in 2010; that is, the Gulf Cup of Nations and West Asian Federation Championship. Goran might be -- just might be -- a good motivator and character, but he's certainly no Rijkaard or Queiroz. Saudi Arabia's B team should, in all likelihood, always be better than our A team. Dare I say, it's highly probable that there are players in Saudi Arabia's B team who would make their peers from the A team look bad. Anyway, well done to Morocco.