Oman and Bahrain qualify for the Arab Cup

The Bahraini national team and the Omani national team qualified for the 2025 Arab Cup, which will be held in Qatar during the period Between December 1 and 18, they defeated Djibouti and Somalia, respectively.

Ibrahim Al Rajhi, Oman’s goalkeeper, spared veteran Portuguese coach Carlos Queiroz embarrassment when he led his country to victory over Somalia on penalties 4-1 (regular time 0-0), today, in Doha, in the qualifying round for the 2025 Arab Cup for football.
Oman, which qualified for the finals for the second time in its history after 2021, will play in Group Two alongside Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the winner of the Yemen-Comoros match later.
Queiroz (72 years old) brought on Al-Rajhi a minute before the end of the seven-minute stoppage time to replace Ibrahim Al-Mukhaini. The Al-Nasr goalkeeper lived up to his coach’s expectations and blocked two penalty kicks taken by Zakaria Hassan and Ali Musa out of three for Somalia, while Oman succeeded in scoring its four kicks.
For its part, Somalia, ranked 200th in the world, which recorded its last official victory on December 13, 2019 at the expense of Burundi (1-0), was aspiring to its first qualification in the history of the Arab Cup, but it failed for the second time against Oman, which it also defeated 2-1 in the 2021 edition.
In another match, the Bahrain national team reached the finals, after defeating Djibouti 1-0 at Jassim bin Hamad Stadium at Al Sadd Club.
Mohammed Al-Rumaihi (36) scored the goal of the match that saw Djiboutian Ahmed Zakaria sent off for receiving a second warning (41).
With this victory, Bahrain reserved its place in the finals and will compete in the fourth group, which includes Algeria, the title holder, and Iraq, along with the winner of the Sudan-Lebanon match, which will be held later.
Bahrain controlled the ball in midfield in the first quarter-hour, through Ali Madan, Kamil Al-Aswad and Sayed Dhiaa Saeed, without any serious attacking attempts on Djibouti goalkeeper Mukhtar Youssef.
On the other hand, Mauritania played a zone defense method and relied on reverse balls rebounded by Moaz Mohammed’s runs from the right side and exploiting Bahrain’s poor defensive coverage in the left zone.
Bahrain’s pressure on Djibouti’s goal resulted in scoring the opening goal by Mohammed Al-Rumaihi after a cross pass from Mohammed Marhoon inside the penalty area. It reached goalkeeper Yousef, who failed to catch the ball and it fell in front of Al-Rumaihi, so he played it into the goal (36).
Shortly before the end of the first half, Djibouti completed the match with ten players, after defender Ahmed Zakaria was sent off after hitting Bahrain player Mahdi Abdul-Jabbar without the ball (41).
Sudan will later play Lebanon and Yemen will play Comoros to reserve the last two tickets to the finals.