Yemen knocked out of Gulf Cup after 1-0 loss to Qatar as coach points to conflict at home
Noureddine Ould Ali's Yemen were beaten 1-0 by Qatar in the Gulf Cup in Jeddah on Saturday, a defeat that eliminated the Reds from the eight-nation tournament with one group match still to play. The coach declined to use a missed penalty as his principal explanation for the loss.
The Algerian coach contrasted Yemen’s situation with Qatar’s recent World Cup participation and infrastructure, noting Qatar’s Aspire Academy, state-of-the-art stadia and Julen Lopetegui in charge, while saying Yemen have none of those resources. Yemen have not played a home game since a 2-1 win over Palestine in Sanaa in 2012; 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. A United Nations-brokered truce in 2022 reduced hostilities for a time but the situation escalated again and, 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 of the Gulf Cup, the 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.
“The situation in Aden was OK, we tried our best and had a training camp with local players and then we joined up with the rest of the squad in Jeddah,” Ould Ali says. “The situation is a political situation and it is not stable. 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.”
Yemen’s campaign included a 4-0 opening defeat by the United Arab Emirates and a 5-2 victory over Bahrain in their final group fixture. Ould Ali pointed to disparities in domestic football structures, saying the UAE rely on naturalised players and noted Andrés Iniesta coaching in the second tier, while Yemen’s top domestic competition has been badly affected by the fighting. “The league stopped for a long time and restarted this year and they finished the first half of the season,” Ould Ali said. “It is very important. The players need to play, need to keep fit and show their talent. The people support us. 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 Yemen’s squad remain based in the country, and before the 27th edition of the Gulf Cup Yemen was the only one of the eight teams never to have won any of the 26 previous tournaments or advanced beyond the group stage. Ould Ali acknowledged the players’ concerns for family back home while asking them to maintain focus. “They worry about what is going on in the country and they hope that their families are OK,” the coach said. “This is normal but they are professional and I ask them to try to focus on the games. I have lived this situation before, I have geopolitics experience in the region.”
Ould Ali outlined his prior experience in similarly unstable circumstances, saying he spent three years in charge of Palestine from 2018 to 2021 after more than four years as an assistant coach and describing some of the operational difficulties there. “Each situation is different. Yemen is a problem between Yemenis, not between outside countries. For a coach, Palestine was very difficult. The Israeli soldiers used to stop me for eight to 10 hours before I could go to work. The players are not free and when we played overseas, they stopped the players. It was a pleasure for me to work with Palestine, their difficulties are not made by Palestinians.”
Yemen secured qualification for the 2027 Asian Cup in June by defeating Lebanon to become the last team to qualify, a result Ould Ali said brought joy at home. “It was a great day for Yemen football and we hope we could make people back home smile for a while and that is what it is all about.” In January, Yemen return to Jeddah for an opening game against South Korea, who feature players mentioned in squad lists such as Atlético Madrid’s Lee Kang-in, Kim Min-jae of Bayern Munich and Son Heung-min.
“Again, we will try to make the people at home proud. It would be very nice to give the world a different headline about Yemen. When we are united we feel we can beat anyone.”