A “miracle” winning streak has propelled Yemen’s senior and youth soccer teams to the Asian Cup, catching the war-torn nation’s attention and offering a common goal.
Qualification is a first ever for the senior team based in Qatar and a rare achievement for the under-16s who still train in Yemen.
“Qualification has brought Yemenis together — they’re doing us proud,” fan Ahmed Sabahi said. “All Yemenis are behind their team.”
Photo: AFP
Yemen’s war pitting pro-government forces supported by a Saudi-led coalition against Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels last month entered its fourth year.
The conflict has left nearly 10,000 people dead, tens of thousands wounded and created what the UN says is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The senior team on March 27 beat Nepal 2-1, reaching the Asian Football Confederation Asian Cup to be contested from January to February next year in the United Arab Emirates — for the first time in Yemen’s history.
The U-16 tournament is to take place in Malaysia from September to October.
To build the youth team, selectors traveled the length of the country, including war zones and sectors controlled by rival factions.
Ranked 125th in the world by FIFA, Yemen’s senior team have never won a single match in the Gulf Cup against their neighbors since the competition was launched in 1970.
Yemen’s media used to congratulate the team for an “honorable defeat” if they avoided a hammering. Asian Cup qualification was hailed as nothing less than a miracle.
Paradoxically, Yemeni soccer has benefited from the war, with senior players relocated to a training camp in Qatar, which has the most up-to-date facilities as it builds up to hosting the 2022 World Cup.
Abd al-Salam al-Saadi, a coach in Sana’a, sees another key factor: “The players have not been drawn into politics.”
Yemen’s war has left infrastructure, homes, schools and ports in ruins. Dozens of stadiums have been bombed or turned into military camps for various armed factions.
For fans back home, Yemen’s successful qualification offers a glimmer of hope and a distraction from everyday life.
It has “helped put a smile on the face of Yemeni youths, who need reasons to be happy and to forget,” fan Saleh Hanash said.
More than half of Yemen’s 27 million people are aged under 18.
After a three-year hiatus, soccer is making a return to Aden, which Yemen’s internationally recognized government has declared its provisional capital while Sana’a remains in rebel hands.
The national league has been suspended, but matches are being played in the southern port city, with local tournaments organized between districts.
Soccer in Yemen “doesn’t gather the crowds you see next door in Gulf states,” said Fadel al-Wasabi, one of a handful of fans seated on green plastic chairs as two clubs battled it out on a dirt pitch beside a wall pocked by shellfire.
“Maybe that’s because Yemenis are preoccupied with securing their basic needs,” he said, glancing over at a nearby stadium, bombed out and filled with debris.
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