Manama: Yemen coach Tom Saintfiet found positives in his side’s 2-0 defeat to Kuwait in their Gulf Cup opener at Khalifa Stadium on Sunday, despite seeing their hour-long supremacy crumble in the last 30 minutes.

Record ten-time Gulf Cup champions, Kuwait, gradually broke down the defiant underdogs thanks to two second-half goals from Mohammad Al Sulaiman and Bader Al Motawaa.

Al Sulaiman headed Fahad Shaheen’s left-wing cross in at the back post on the hour, while Al Motawaa struck into the top right-hand corner from the edge of the area after Al Suliman’s assist ten minutes from time.

This followed Bader Al Motawaa’s failure to convert a penalty inside ten minutes, the spot-kick saved by goalkeeper Saoud Abdullah, which had sparked a wave of optimism from The Belgian, who said: “I hate losing, and I’m very disappointed with the result, so I’m not happy right now, but we played one good hour as asked. We just have to continue to work on that last half hour. I’m very satisfied with the one hour of good football shown.”

Kameel Mohammad missed two clear chances for Yemen, firing a volley straight at Kuwaiti goalkeeper Nawaf Al Khaldi from Khaled Baleid’s left-wing cross on the half-hour when unmarked. He then squandered a tap-in at the back post after latching onto Abdulwaheed’s header from Akram Al Wrafi’s left-wing corner before the interval.

A one-two between Al Wrafi and Kameel led the pair right up to the edge of the penalty area early in the second half as hard-working Yemen continued to push for a goal, but Kameel again faltered in front of goal.

Kuwait then stepped up a few gears after an hour as Yemen tired and a cruel defeat ensued.

Saintfiet added: “We had a very easy penalty given against us, but our ‘keeper made a brilliant save. We then missed two good opportunities to score. In reflection, 0-0 was probably the correct result at half-time but, with a little bit of luck, we could have come in for the break 1-0 up.”

He continued: “In the second half we became tired, and I was a little surprised with how easily they scored the first goal. We made changes to press more, and I’m only disappointed that we couldn’t do more with our possession in the last half-hour to create more chances and get a goal back as that’s what we had trained for.”

Yemen take on Saudi Arabia in their next Group B encounter at 8.15pm (UAE time) on Wednesday.