Gulf 25

The Iraqi national team will meet its Qatari counterpart today, Monday, in the semi-finals of the current edition of the Arab Gulf Cup “Gulf 25”, while the Bahrain national team will clash with its Omani counterpart, in the other confrontation in the golden square of the tournament hosted by Iraq until the nineteenth of January 2023.

The Bahrain and Qatar national teams qualified for the “Gulf 25” semi-finals, after they tied with the same score 1-1, with the national teams of Kuwait and the UAE, respectively, in the match that brought them together at the “Basra International Stadium”, within the competitions of the third and final round of the group stage, for the third group in Arabian Gulf Cup.

The Bahraini team topped the second group standings, with 7 points, then Qatar 4 points, ahead of Kuwait with the same score, and finally the UAE with one point.

The dates of the 25 Gulf semi-final matches are as follows.

Iraq x Qatar – Monday, January 16th – 3:15 in the afternoon – at Basra International Stadium

Bahrain x Oman – Monday, January 16th – 7:15 pm – at Basra International Stadium

The host Iraqi national team will play against their Saudi counterpart today at 18:15 Al-Quds Al-Sharif time in the second round of Group A competitions of Gulf Cup 2023 for ‘Gulf 25’ football.

The Saudi national team leads the group standings with 3 points, ahead of the Iraqi national team (one point), the Oman national team (one point) and the Yemeni national team without points.

The Saudi national team won their opening match against their Yemeni counterpart, 2-0, while the Iraqi national team drew goalless against their Omani counterpart.

Prior to this match, Oman will play Yemen at 15:15.

The result of these two matches will be important for qualifying for the semifinals, before the third round.

The city of Basra in Iraq will host the Gulf Cup tournament, “Gulf 25”, from January 6 to 19.

Iraq hosts the championship in two stadiums, the first being Basra Stadium, nicknamed “The Palm Trunk”, which seats around 65,000 spectators. The other is located in the same city, which is the “Al Mina Stadium”, and can seat around 30,000 spectators.

Here’s a glimpse of the two host stadiums 👇

Palma Trunk Stadium

It is located in Basra Sports City in Iraq. Opened in 2013, it is the largest stadium in Mesopotamia, with a capacity of around 65,000 spectators.

It is considered a unique masterpiece. It was inaugurated in 2013, with a capacity of over 65,000 spectators, with 5 stadiums attached, one of which has a capacity of 10,000 spectators, and 4 training fields.

It includes an Olympic swimming pool with a capacity of 10,000 spectators, 8 residential buildings for visitors, 5-star hotels, a polo field, a 150m high tower, a youth village, a sports medicine hospital, tennis courts, . It includes a garage that can accommodate approximately 10,000 cars.

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The design of the stadium was inspired by the trunk of the date palm, famous for its cultivation in the Iraqi city of Basra. The first international match was held on the field on June 1, 2017 between the Iraqi and Jordanian national teams, and ended with the victory of Iraq with only one goal scored by the player Alaa Abdul Zahra.

A match between Iraq Stars and World Stars was also held on 9 September 2017, and the match ended with World Stars winning 5 goals to Iraq Stars 4 goals.

Palm Trunk Stadium will host matches of the first group, which includes the owner of the ground, Iraq, Oman, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

Al Minà Stadium

Al Mina Stadium is one of the oldest stadiums in the Persian Gulf region. In 2011, the Iraqi Ministry of Youth and Sports demolished the stadium, to build another one on the same acreage, with a capacity of 30,000 spectators, after it held 10,000 spectators.

It was built on an area of ​​51 dunums in the Al-Maqal area of ​​Basra and two training stadiums with a capacity of 400 spectators each were connected to it.

The stadium was officially reopened on December 26, 2022, in a match that brought together the Iraqi Al-Mina Club and the Kuwaiti Al-Kuwait Club, in which the latter won with two goals to one, and the opening is been experimental in front of the stadium it hosted the second round matches in the “Gulf 25” of Basra.

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Al Mina Stadium was designed in an architectural style that simulates the city’s history, nature and its relationship with the Gulf heritage. The wall of the stadium appears in the form of sea waves covered by an open circular roof in the shape of sails, used by ships and boats in their commercial voyages.

Al-Mina Stadium will host second-tier matches in Gulf 25, which includes teams from Qatar, Emirates and Kuwait, as well as defending champion Bahrain.

Group matches will kick off on January 7, between defending champions Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates national team.

The draw for the 25th Gulf Cup took place on 25 October 2022 in the city of Basra.