The Post Gulf War 1990s: Reliving The Dreams
The 1990s marked the most diversified era in Kuwait's football league history, with Kazma winning 2 titles, Salmiya winning 3, Al Arabi and Al Qadsiya both winning an odd amount of times, as well as Al-Kuwait sharing the spoils. The formatting for the first couple of seasons after the war changed, with the league divided into two conferences, and the top 2 of each conference meeting at a final round-robin group stage event. It was more complicated, however, the team with most endurance came out of it alive and winner of the league. The rivalry between Al-Arabi and Al-Qadsia was short lived after the war. The scene then moved to Kazma who promised to relive their 1980s memories by winning another 2 titles in the mid 1990s. However this soon became part of history as Kazma failed to win a fifth league trophy since then. Although AlArabi and AlQadsiya had their own bit of success during the 1990s, as well as Kuwait FC, the most remember team of the 1990s was undoubtedly Salmiya. The decade belonged to their prestige and dominance. Though they only won it 3 times, it was one trophy more than any other winning team of the 1990s decade. Additionally, no team ever came close to contesting their top spot. Salmiya won the league in seasons 94/95 finishing 7 points clear of second place Qadsiya, 97/98 finishing 9 points clear of second place Kazma and 99/00 finishing 3 points clear of second place Qadsiya in the final round group stages. The team was well remembered for having a number of dream strikers, including the duo Jassem Al Howaidi and Bashar Al Abdallah - who both played for the Kuwait national side between 1997-2002. It was the second golden generation of Kuwait's national football team, which won back-to-back gulf cup titles, came fourth in Asian Cup 96 and qualified for the 2000 Summer olympics in Sydney. The duo not only reflected their talents internationally, but they also set the record for winning 3 league championships in the 1990s as well as winning the prince cup in 2000.
Kazma also had golden moments in the 1990s by winning 2 league championships, a gulf club championship (becoming the 2nd Kuwaiti team to win it since Al-Arabi) in addition to 2 consecutive Prince Cups in the mid 1990s. Although Kazma is more successful in the trophy titles than Salmiya, both teams are remembered to be part of the new "big 5", a concept introduced in the 1980s after they joined the big-3 dominance and also became a major player in Kuwaiti football.
Now the question remains of who would join the big-six...
Read more about this topic: Kuwaiti Premier League
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