Kuwait City, Kuwait, May 25, 2022: The United Arab Emirates knew the home crowd would give them a tough time in the men’s basketball gold medal final against hometown heroes Kuwait, so each player had an armful of roses before the match began and threw it into the fans in the stands.
The flower power failed to work for the UAE as the noisy fans were totally behind their team, but what worked was the conviction that they could block out the home conditions and just focus their minds on dropping in those precious baskets and hitting the three-pointers at the Sheikh Saad Al-Abdullah Al Sabah Multi Sports Complex.
And it worked as UAE held on to register a gripping 76-73 victory to lift one of the most coveted gold medals at the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) Games Kuwait 2022 on Wednesday night, May 25.
“We knew the fans would be against us, hence the roses. But at the end, I believe the pressure was more on Kuwait than on us. We are a young team, and we dug deep and played as a unit to pull off this magnificent victory,” said ecstatic UAE forward Omar Alameri afterwards.
Alameri made four crucial three-pointers during the match – the most by any player from both teams - which enabled the Emiratis to keep their noses in front, having led by 12 points at one stage. But Kuwait came back strongly and levelled scores at 69-69 with four minutes left in the match.
Those last four minutes had more drama than a Game of Thrones episode as both sides grappled for the crown. Gulf brotherhood was forgotten in those last minutes of the game which was a cacophony of noise and tension.
But as Alameri pointed out later, the pressure-cooker atmosphere also worked against Kuwait as powerhouse forward Mohamed Hasan missed an easy shot to equal the score and was left crying inconsolably.
Desperate to get the ball back trailing 73-75, and with three seconds left on the clock, Kuwait fouled Jasim Al-Maazmi hoping he would miss his penalty shot. But the UAE centre kept cool and calmly dropped the ball dead centre to wrap up the match.
“The self-belief this team had was amazing. We knew they would come hard at us and that we would be battling against the crowd too. But we controlled the tempo of the match and managed to win the crucial moments. There was no luck involved in this victory, it was pure hard work,” said UAE’s Tunisian coach Mounir Ben Slimane.
In the third place play-off, Saudi Arabia defeated Bahrain 65-57 to take home the bronze medal.
