QATAR'S new-look football team wrapped up its campaign in the CONCACAF Gold Cup last week showing great promise ahead of their important forthcoming assignments. Although Al Annabi, who featured in the tournament for the second time as a guest side representing Asia, couldn’t emulate their performance when they reached the semi-finals of the event on their debut in 2021, the youngsters displayed fine performance signaling a bright future for the team.
Veteran Portuguese Carlos Queiroz in his first assignment as Qatar coach picked many youngsters for the tournament while snubbing several seniors like Hassan Al Haydos, Akram Afif and goalkeeper Saad Al Sheeb. Yet, the young side showed remarkable performance and cleared a tough group including eight-time champions Mexico, who will play against Panama in the tournament’s final.
The best result for the reigning Asian champions in the competition was a historic 1-0 victory against Mexico – a World No.14 side – that took them in the quarter-finals following a shock 2-1 defeat to Haiti and a 1-1 draw against Honduras in the group stage. Apart from becoming a victim of some harsh refereeing decisions, Qatar also battled some setbacks in the tournament like an injury to star striker Almoez Ali, who missed the entire group stage action. Qatar were also without six players in the quarter-final due to suspensions for accumulating yellow cards with finalists Panama knocking them out in the last-8 stage.
Many positives can be taken from Qatar’s campaign in the United States despite their failure to reach far in the Gold Cup. Youngsters, particularly, were impressive in what was their first major international assignment. Yousuf Abdurisag, Tamim Mansour and Hazem Shehata looked promising while Meshaal Barsham also showed his ability to become the first-choice goalkeeper with his outstanding performance particularly against Mexico.
Queiroz also hailed the players’ work ethics, commitment and efforts. “I am very much pleased with our growing achievements. We’re definitely better prepared to challenge with success our future goals,” he said in a message to team after the Gold Cup journey.
Under Queiroz, Qatar’s main goals are a successful FIFA World Cup 2026 World Cup Qualifying campaign to begin this November, and a title defence in the Asian Cup as hosts from January 12 to February 10, 2024. The players will now join their respective clubs preparing for the 2023-24 domestic season before returning to the national training camp ahead of the World Cup Qualifiers. After the challenging Gold Cup experience, the team is expected to show improved results with coach Queiroz seeing Al Annabi on the track to achieve desired results.
