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| One blunder aside Al Habsi made the difference for the home side [GALLO/GETTY] |
Oman coach Claude Le Roy described his team's disappointing nil-nil draw as a boxing match - and insisted that Kuwait had won the Gulf Cup group A opener on points.
As a spectacle it certainly resembled a Nikolai Valuev swedge-fest more than the butterfly boxing of Muhammad Ali, with the essential problem being that neither team possessed enough craft to deliver a knockout blow.
Such was the wastefulness in front of goal that, by the closing stages of Sunday's match, what had been a hugely expectant home crowd in Muscat looked resigned to another miss even as the goal gaped invitingly in front of their strikers.
Wayward jab
Muscular forward Hassan Zaher started as he meant to go on in the first half as he jabbed a wonderful chance wide of the post - the only knockout on that occasion being the blow to the head received by Kuwait keeper Nawaf Al-Khaldy off his own upright.
Ahmad Ajab had shown the way for the visitors, tamely prodding the ball at Oman superstar keeper Ali Al Habsi with the entire net to aim at.
And as if the Bolton Wanderers keeper - freshly crowned the best Arab player in Europe alongside Wigan's Amr Zaki - felt like showing solidarity with his less skilful comrades, he marked the second half by very nearly palming a hopeful long ball backwards into his own net.
But while Al Habsi redeemed himself with a number of fine saves from Ajab, the outfield players couldn't follow his lead.
Despite Oman's midfield pinning Kuwait to the ropes for much of the match, Le Roy felt the visitors had boxed clever.
"If we didn't play a good game it was because the Kuwaiti team did play a good game," the Frenchman said.
"We also had opportunites to score, but we were not far from losing and not far from winning.
"Like in boxing, if one team deserved to win on points it was the Kuwaiti team."
Tame slap
Zaher summed up the strikers' dreadful performance in the second half as more good build-up play from midfield was horribly wasted, one quickfire Oman attack ending with the forward sprawled on the floor after slapping the ball wide of the post when it would have been easier to score.
No doubt the gloves will be off when Le Roy takes his next training session, but the well-travelled coach empathised with his team's struggles in their first Gulf Cup match on home soil.
"We tried to work on a psychological level to take the pressure off them and put it onto the coaching staff," he said.
"They want so much to win this Gulf Cup and we will find the real Oman team for the second game."
The former Ghana coach added that if anyone was going to be beating themselves up over the result, it was him.
"The bad result is always for the coach and victory is for the players," he said.
"This result is for me and I hope in a couple of days we will get a result which is for the players."
Iraq rocked
In the night's second match in the group, Asian Cup champions Iraq were shocked 3-1 by tiny Gulf State rivals Bahrain.
Iraq midfielder Haitham Kadhim Tahir was sent off for a second yellow on 25 minutes - the first of his team's two red cards.
Three minutes later Bahrain's Abdullah Omar tucked away a cross before wheeling away pretending to throw a spear across the pitch.
Then on 65 minutes, Iraq keeper Nour Sabri got his marching orders for bringing down Omar with the goal gaping.
His teammates congratulated him on his way off, but Mohamed Sayed Adnan slammed the penalty home to make it 2-0.
Younis Mahmoud pulled one back from the spot before Abdulla Aldeheel rubbed salt in the wounds with a last-minute clincher.
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