The Yemen national team coach, Noureddine Ould Ali, chose not to reach for a good old-fashioned football excuse for his team’s 1-0 loss to Qatar in the Gulf Cup on Saturday, despite a clear penalty that was not given his way. The defeat meant the Reds crashed out of the eight-nation regional tournament, currently taking place in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with a game of the group stage still remaining. There are other factors that the Algerian coach could list for a defeat against a team that was at the World Cup in the summer.
Qatar also have the Aspire Academy, state of the art stadia and a former Spain and Real Madrid coach – Julen Lopetegui – in charge. Yemen have none of those things and have not played a home game since 2012, a 2-1 win over Palestine in Sanaa. Two years later, that capital city came under the control of the Houthis, an Iran-backed militant group, provoking a Saudi-led intervention and years of fighting.
The United Nations brokered a truce in 2022 that did reduce hostilities, but the situation has now escalated again. In early September, the Houthis swept down the Red Sea coast in its first major military advance in five years and have been targeting Riyadh and other places in Saudi Arabia with missile strikes. At the time, the Yemeni national team had been training in the southern port city of Aden, home of the presidential leadership council, Yemen’s internationally recognised, Saudi-backed governing body.
In football of course, we have to be careful, we have a lot of attention on outside factors but we always try to focus on the football and to do better. In Saudi Arabia, the welcome has been great, the people are very friendly and there is a high level of training facilities, hotels and everything. It means that we could focus on football.” Losing 4-0 to the United Arab Emirates in the opener was a reality check but the UAE have a lot of naturalised talent from overseas to count on and, domestically, the likes of Andrés Iniesta coaching in the second tier.
Yemen barely has a top tier with the local league naturally affected by the fighting. And still they beat Bahrain 5-2 in their final group game. The players need to play, need to keep fit and show their talent.
It is a religion in Yemen. Everyone likes football and the national team and follows their star players. The Yemeni people are the same as anyone else.” Most of the players are still based at home and prior to the 27th edition of the Gulf Cup, Yemen was the only one of the eight never to have won any of the 26 previous tournaments and have never even got out of the group.
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