Oman won the 19th Gulf Cup

 

The gulf cup is a soccer event during which all gulf countries team play a tournament. It takes in a different country every year.

The 19th edition of the cup was held in Oman. After defeating Qatar in semi-final, they were to play against Saudi for final. Every time Oman was playing, the city froze for 90min: almost no car in streets, everybody at home or in cafés in front of TV screen...

Most games were held in Sultan Qaboos Sport Complex. Since I live in Al Khuwair, traffic just gets crazy after games and it took me hours to get back home.

Yesterday was the last game of this year's tournament. Last time, Oman made it to the final but lost.

Since I was working, I could only see the second half. It was a good match, Oman playing better than Saudi. After 90min, the score was still 0-0 and remained so after extra time (players were tired so extra time was poor quality football).

I turned off TV for penalty kicks. I don't like them much. I opened the windows and I could hear the crowd at the nearby stadium. Therefore, I pretty much knew the score of the P. kicks from the scream of the people.

Then, it was 6-5 and Oman won. Within minutes, the road were blocked by cars honking and people dancing in the middle of the street. Most people were wearing a scarf or a hat with Omani colors. It was really crazy but funny. Unfortunately, I had no camera with me at that time.

Some people have put Omani flags on their wipers and have put them on thus it looked like the car was waving the flags...

Other people were playing drum on the side of the road. Motorists stopped and started to dance, leaving their car in the middle of the street, making the traffic even worse.

The game finished at 7:45pm but the streets remained animated till about 1:30am. After the game Sultan Qaboos granted a day off the next day to pubic and private sector. It's kind of a short notice but it's the way holidays I granted here (for another example about the national holiday, please check here).

For what I know, people have been wandering around in their cars all day long, honking to celebrate the first victory of Oman in the Gulf tournament.