Qatar team ready for Arab Gulf Cup campaign
KUWAIT, December 22, 2017 – Defending champions, Qatar's senior football team received a warm reception from the tournament's organizing committee upon arrival at Kuwait International Airport to participate in the 23rd Arab Gulf Cup.
The eyes of Gulf football fans will be on Kuwait where the 23rd Arab Gulf Cup kicks off Friday at Jaber Al-Ahmad International Stadium.
The tournament, which has grown to become part of the popular heritage of the region, bears the logo of the dove of peace coloured in the flags of the GCC countries under the theme “Gulf Forever" as a sign of the unity of the Gulf people and close ties between them.
The showpiece launches after the opening ceremony, which starts Friday at 5.30pm as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia take to the pitch to kick off the tournament before UAE and Oman play the second game in Group A afterwards.
Group B starts tomorrow and features Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain and Yemen. The group matches will be played at Kuwait Sports Club Stadium.
The 23rd edition will be different from previous ones, especially after lifting the suspension on Kuwaiti sport, which lasted two years before FIFA President Gianni Infantino announced before the Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah earlier this month that the sanction was over.
The draw of the tournament was carried out in Doha on Sept. 25 and placed Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Oman in Group A, while Qatar were drawn alongside Bahrain, Iraq and Yemen in Group B. At the time of the draw, holders Qatar were automatically drawn into Group A, but Kuwait were then put in Group A after the lifting of suspension and their return to the competition.
The first edition of the tournament was held in 1970 in Bahrain, featuring Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain, with Kuwait becoming the first Gulf champions.
Saudi Arabia hosted the 22nd Gulf Cup in 2014 with the participation of the eight teams and Qatar were able to win the trophy for the third time.
Numbers and statistics have a big role in the world of football through which the success and the failure of any tournament can be measured, and the scoring statistics show to a large extent the strength of the team and star performances in different tournaments.
The Gulf Cup was no exception as its statistics were always of great interest and the abundance of goals has always been a factor in increasing the popularity of matches in many previous editions of the tournament.
The previous tournaments saw a remarkable progress in performance and the high level of scoring from the first to the fourth tournament is an evidence to that, but the following tournaments saw a sharp decline in the number of goals due to the defensive attitude of some teams.
The last 22 tournaments saw 867 goals being scored, including 260 goals in the last seven editions of the tournament.
The goals were scored in 346 matches over the past 22 tournaments at an average of 2.51 goals per match. Kuwait was the highest scoring team with 193 goals.
Kuwait's Jassim Yaqoub was crowned the best scorer in the history of the Arab Gulf Cup so far after scoring 18 goals in the tournaments he participated in. He was top scorer in the third championship with six goals and the fourth championship with nine goals.
The fourth tournament witnessed 84 goals in 22 games with an average of 3.82 goals per match but the second tournament was the best in terms of goal-scoring, where 25 goals were scored in six games with a rate of 4.17 goals per match.
The lowest tournament in terms of number of goals was the first tournament because of the participation of only four teams. Only 19 goals were scored in six matches, but the goal rate stood at 3.17 per match.
The last edition was one of the intermediate editions in terms of the number of goals (33 goals) and the average 2.06 goals per match.
The Kuwaiti team performed well in previous editions, winning the title 10 times compared to three titles for Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The UAE won it twice and Oman once.
Kuwait were also the most active team in the tournaments as they participated in all previous 22 editions equally with Qatar. The UAE, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia took part in 21 editions, 20 for Oman and 13 for Iraq, while Yemen has participated in the tournament only seven times so far.
Kuwait lead the tournament with the number of matches played so far. They participated in 107 matches compared to 105 for Qatar, 103 for UAE, 102 for Saudi Arabia, 99 for Bahrain and Oman, 53 for Iraq and 24 for Yemen.
Additionally, Kuwait have the highest number of victories, winning 56 matches, with the highest winning percentage at 52.33 percent.
Except for Yemen, which participated only in the last seven tournaments and have not won any matches so far, Oman have the lowest number of victories as they won 16 matches out of 99 (16.16 percent).
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