Oman 3

 

Zahir Al-Aghbari (Al-Khaldiya, Bahrain)
vs. China (2:0) | World Cup Qualifier | 2022 in Oman

 

Oman is a stunning little Sultanate on the South East tip of the Arabian Peninsula that is not as small as one might think. It is actually about 1.3 times the size of the UK, but is home to just a bit over 4.5 million Omanis. It has a small border to neighboring UAE, but is mostly bordering Saudi Arabia and Yemen and thus is in a bit of troubled neighborhood, one could say. Yet, Oman itself is not just very safe, but also just a pleasant place to be in. While certainly not a democracy, it's Sultan has turned the country into a very welcoming and easy-going place compared to Saudi Arabia and even most of the Emirates.

As I got a chance to write about Oman again, finally, let me point to two oddities the country can come up with: First, Oman does have an exclave surrounded by the UAE called Musandam. Musandam again is seperated into two disconnected pieces of territory. In the Southern bit of it, Mahda, there is again a UAE exclave, called Nahwa, trapped in it. To go from Nahwa to any other place in the UAE, you thus have to cross through Mahda and thus get past an Omani border control. It is one of the few so-called second-order exclaves in the world.

Secondly, did you know that there is a jungle on the Arabian Peninsula? Every year, the region close to the Yemeni capital and surrounding Omans second city of Salalah turns into a dense jungle for 3 months, thanks to a weather phenomena called "Salalah monsoon". While we might usually run away from rain, it is very welcome in the dusty and otherwise deserted country and turned Salalah into a major tourism hub.

Omani football is not quite as successful as the country is in other domains. Indeed, it is so bad that they even lost to Germany a few days before the Qatar World Cup in 2022. But it is not terrible, either. Oman has won the Gulf Cup twice with the last silverware coming in in 2017 when they beat the UAE in the final. In the most recent edition, in 2023, they just lost to Iraq in the final.

This shirt is in use since 2022ish. It is the first that was made available easily via the manufacturer Jako. It was still not easy to get it, but at least some were sold to collectors, such as this one. It did set me back 40 Euro and at the time, I also got the white counterpart, which I traded in for another shirt later.