The first coach of the Asian Cup was born, and he led the team to 0 wins and was eliminated, which is still stronger than the national football team!
The group stage of the 2024 Asian Cup has all ended, and the 16 qualifying teams have been officially born. In this competition, the performance of the Chinese men's football team was somewhat poor, and in the 3 group games, the national football team only achieved a record of 2 draws and 1 loss, and was eliminated after the group stage and became the laughing stock of Asian football. And there is a strong team in Asian football, which is also out of the game, and their coach has become the first coach to be fired in this Asian Cup!
Not long ago, the Oman Football Association officially issued an announcement to terminate the contract with Croatian coach Ivankovic, who is still unable to escape the fate of the class after four years of coaching the West Asian team. The biggest reason why Ivankovic left class was that in the Asian Cup, the Oman team, which had the opportunity to hit the top eight in Asia, was eliminated after the group stage. In this regard, it is natural that someone will come out to take the blame, so Ivankovic, whose contract is about to expire, became a victim and had no choice but to hand over the whip.
In fact, in this Asian Cup, the performance of the Oman team is not lacking in highlights. In the first round against the top seeds of the group, Saudi Arabia, Oman almost caused a big upset, and thanks to Yahya's penalty goal, Oman took the lead for the majority of the game. However, in the final moments of the game, the Omani could not withstand the frantic onslaught of their opponents, and in the final moments of stoppage time, the Saudi Arabians scored the winner goal, and the Omani team fell short and watched the soon-to-be-cooked duck fly away.
Immediately after facing Thailand in Southeast Asia, Oman besieged the whole game, but were unable to score a goal and only won a draw. However, before the start of the final round of matches, the initiative to qualify from the group is still in the hands of the Omanis themselves, as long as they can beat the Kyrgyz team, the Omani team can still break through smoothly and get a ticket to the round of 16. And the trend of the game also seems to be developing in favor of the Oman team. Just eight minutes into the game, Oman took a 1-0 lead through a corner kick that was scored by Ghassani.
Unfortunately, in the following games, Oman has not been able to extend the score, but their backline has made a big mistake. In the 80th minute, taking advantage of the Omani team's own goalkeeper and defender's coordination error, the Kyrgyzstan team successfully equalized the score by striker Kojo. In the end, Oman and Kyrgyzstan ended in a 1-1 draw, which also made the two teams go out of the game together and became spectators from the sidelines in advance.
In this Asian Cup, the Oman team, like the Chinese men's football team, has achieved a record of 2 draws and 1 loss, but unlike the national football team, the Oman team scored a total of 2 goals in this competition, if it weren't for their incredible backcourt mistakes, there would definitely be this West Asian team in the top 16 teams. But there is no "what if" in the football world, and the Oman team can only turn its focus back to the round of 36 and strive to reach the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico!