Yemen vs United Arab Emirates

The smallest record at the biggest ground

King Fahd Sports City holds 72 000 and stages the tournament opener and the final. In between it also stages this: Yemen, at a third Asian Cup, against a United Arab Emirates side at a twelfth. It is the largest crowd any Yemeni team will have played in front of at this competition.

Yemen have never reached the knockout stage of an Asian Cup. South Yemen made that first appearance in 1976, before unification. The second came in 2019. They missed 2023 altogether, which makes three appearances across half a century, a thin record even by the standards of the smaller nations here.

For the Emirates this is the sort of fixture that gets called routine until it is not. One final, in 1996. Eleven other appearances that ended earlier. Second place in Group E is the realistic target, and dropping points here would complicate it considerably.

The two records

This is a third Asian Cup for Yemen, whose best finish is group stage (1976, 2019), against a twelfth for United Arab Emirates, best runners-up (1996). The Yemen finish was as South Yemen.