Oman is making gaint strides under Le Roy. Proof: yesterday’s 1-0 defeat against the hightly ranked Paraguay, who are ranked 17 in FIFA rankings, while Oman is languishing at 95. I hope Oman will get lucky this time in the Gulf Cup tourney which will be played in the first week of January 2009 in Muscat. I am a soccer freak and can’t wait to get into Gulf Cup action. The day I landed in Muscat a few years back, Oman was playing Qatar in the finals, and I remember hundreds of cars decked up in national flags invading the the highway with their hazard lights on. What a sight it was – truly amazing.

Some pix from yesterday’s match:

The 16-year-old Buthaina Yaqoubi will represent Oman at the Bejing Olympics and she will compete in 100m sprint and long jump. Team Oman also includes Mohammed al Habsi (100m breaststroke), Abdullah al Souli (100m, 200m sprint) and Dad al Balushi (50m rifle men’s prone competition with 60 rounds).

According to our sources in the Uruguayan media, erstwhile coach of Oman football team, Julio Cesar Ribas, has gone around saying Al Al-Habsi didn’t want to train hard, as Ribas wanted him to. So was the star player responsible for Oman’s successive bad shows?

In an interview, which is posted on his blog, Julio said:

Meanwhile, Al-Habsi’s statement to the press has proved that he and Ribas weren’t best of friends. Here is a sample:

Oman goalkeeper Ali Al Habsi has welcomed Ribas’s departure. “I am very happy. We weren’t sure if we could win under that manager. He didn’t have mutual confidence with the players,” Al Habsi was quoted as saying. “The team will now move in a good direction.”

Has Al Habsi grown too big for his boots?

I have been walking like a zombie since yesterday. Reason: I played field hockey after a gap of 14 long years on Friday, four matches at a stretch, and my bones, muscles are aching very badly. I was all excited when I was told about the sixes hockey tournament being organised by the Kerala Wing of the Indian Social Club in Wattayah a week back.

My teammates of Team Coorg did manage to practice for 4-5 days, and I managed to sweat it out for a day, that too a day before the tournament. Although the matches were of 20 minutes duration each, it was very demanding for the players to sweat it under scorching sun. There were plenty of on field action in terms of hits, misses and falls. Many a times, I was gasping for breath, unable to run behind the ball (I go for regular walks everyday, but realized walking and running are different ball game altogether). Although, our team didn’t manage a podium finish, we still had a lot of fond moments to cherish.

Team Coorg, that is our team.

The Omani team (in yellow T-shirts) won the tournament. They had tremendous stamina and firepower.

…says Milan Macala, the 65-year-old Czech who was twice in charge of Oman, and who is now the coach of Bahrain. (read this interesting story)

His predicament is understandable. If Oman wins, all is well. God forbid, if we lose?

It’s Catch-22 for Macala tomorrow.

Last week, Ignacio Pardo, an experienced Uruguayan journalist who is working for La Diaria newspaper, mailed me to know the details of the appointment of Julio Cesar Ribas as Oman’s coach. In the process, I asked him if he could send me some authentic info on Ribas, and this is what he had to say:

Ribas has won many titles as a coach here in Uruguay, but is above all famous because of his personality. He is quite strict with his players, who respect and like him in almost every case. For him, discipline is a very important part of a team’s work. He is also famous because of his ability to prepare players in psychological matters.

He became champion with Peñarol (one of the biggest clubs here in Uruguay, 5 times inter-continental club champion) and got important achievements with smaller clubs such as Bella Vista and Juventud de Las Piedras. He also worked as a coach in “Serie A” in Italy. He is a Christian and talks a lot about his faith. He is said to be quite defensive in his style. His teams don’t receive many goals, but don’t play very nice football either. So be prepared to see many 1 – 0 or 0 – 0 games!

Looks like the officials of the Oman Football Association (OFA) have mastered the art of ‘free kicks’ much faster than the players of the national squad. Now, they have decided to kick out the Argentine coach Gabriel Caledron ‘amicably’. To add salt to injury, the visibly shaken coach was made to sit alongside OFA officials in the press conference announcing the sack. Poor chap. It has to be noted that Caledron was the choice of the erstwhile OFA whose tenure ended some months back. In all probability Caledron became victim of the changing equations. Milan Macala to Juricic Srecko to Milan Macala to Gabriel Caledron… it is high time the promising Omani team is bestowed with a steady coach who can guide the team to the next level. Now, over to the new Uruguayan coach Julio Cesar Ribas.

OFA officials and Gabriel Caledron (right) at the press conference.