The latest edition of the Arabian Gulf Cup held in Doha until December 8 saw a record amount of 39 goals scored during the 12 group stage matches.

The first round had the fewest amount of goals with 10. A total of three of those goals was in Iraq's win over Qatar 2-1, another three in UAE's win over Yemen 3-0, and four came in Kuwait's victory over Saudi Arabia 3-1. The second round's goal tally rose to 13, mainly thanks to Qatar's big 6-0 win over Yemen. The ascendency continues, with 16 goals in the third round. Again Qatar was involved in a high-scoring match in the 4-2 victory over UAE. Bahrain matched the scoreline in its victory over Kuwait, in addition to the four goals scored in Saudi Arabia's 3-1 win over Oman.

UAE's Ali Mabkhot is the lead goal scorer so far with five in this edition, and 13 in all Gulf cups. He is five goals away from equaling the record set by Kuwait's Jassim Yaqcoub. Qatar's Abdulkareem Hassan and Akram Afif are joint second with three goals each.

The previous two editions of the Gulf Cup saw 22 goals scored each in the group stage, with the one before them seeing a total of 25 goals in the group stage. All of them are close to half the number of goals scored in the current addition. The third round of the current edition is also the highest scoring round in the history of the competition, breaking the previous record of 13 scored during the 17th edition. (QNA)


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