MUSCAT: Oman's Al Noor defeated UAE 10-0 in the Gulf Clubs and Associations Challenge for Blind Goalball in Oman on Monday. The championship organised by the Al Noor Association for the Blind and the Oman Paralympic Committee witnessed the dominance of teams from Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
The match started off with a kick-off in favor of the Al Noor team, which was saved by Emirati player Nawaf Al Masmari who sent a weak shot that was returned strongly by Emad Al Haji to the Emirati goal to score the first goal. Within seconds, Rsheed Al Siyabi scored the second goal for Noor, followed by Younis Khteebe.
After an exchange of shots between the two teams, Al Noor was awarded a penalty kick, which Emad Al Haji converted into the fourth goal in the 50th minute. Khteebe returned to score another goal, making the score 5-0. The UAE players tried to reduce the deficit with several shots that were saved by the Noor players before Rasheed Al Siyabi fired a powerful shot to score the sixth goal in the last seconds of the first half.
The second half started with a kick in favor of the Emirati team, which was executed by Loay Alaay, but the Noor players saved it. After several exchanges of shots, Rsheed Al Siyabi doubled the score for Noor with a powerful shot. Then Emad Al Haji added another goal in the third minute to make the score 8-0.
Omani coach Asil Al Sulaimi made two substitutions; Saqer Al Qasmi for Khteebe and Abdullah for Al Siyabi. The Noor players returned to score two more goals, sealing the match before the end of regular time by eight minutes, to end with a score of 10-0 with some excitement added to it.
In the other match, the match started quickly with Saudi Arabia's Ibrahim Nasser scoring the first goal of the match from the first shot on goal for Bahrain. The two teams then exchanged shots and careful saves until the seventh minute, when Ibrahim Nasser returned to double the score for Saudi Arabia with a powerful shot. Bahraini player Mohsin Abdulrazaq responded with two quick goals to level the score at 2-2 in the middle of the first half.
The competition intensified after the draw, and Mubarak Al Shaherani scored the go-ahead goal for Saudi Arabia, but Mohammed Al Sawad of Bahrain responded quickly with a powerful shot to equalize the score. In the last minutes of the first half, Saudi Arabia relied on shots from Ibrahim Nasser, who scored two goals to double the score for his team. Mohsin Abdulrazaq narrowed the gap with the last shot, to end the first half with Saudi Arabia leading 5-4.
The second half started with a kick in favor of Bahrain, which was saved by Ibrahim Hassan. The excitement continued with the Bahraini team's attempts to come back into the game, but Mubarak Al Shaherani and Ibrahim Nasser of Saudi Arabia were able to double the score to 7-4. After half the time, the Bahraini team's level dropped, allowing the Saudi Al Ahli team to score four consecutive goals to make the score 11-4 in favor of Saudi Arabia.
Bahraini team coach Hussein Mish'em tried to make changes to get back into the match, but the high experience of the Saudi team prevented that, adding three more goals, and the match ended before the end of regular time by a margin of ten goals and a score of 14-4.
In the last matches of the morning session of the second day, the Qatari team managed to defeat the Kuwaiti Al Basira team 12-2, as they were able to finish the match before the end of its first half.
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