Manama: Follow UAE football coach Mahdi Ali around as a reporter, and you begin to appreciate life as one of his players. One approving nod in a press conference is enough to reaffirm your respect for him through an age of ice-cold stares.
The smiles he deploys are at a premium and all his pleasantries are timed. But while he seems locked behind a professional front, the real Ali occasionally creeps out from beyond this facade.
It’s that moment that his players, even reporters, live for. And we can all sense that another, almost astrological, alignment is coming soon. You’ll just have to work for it first.
Ali claims to have fathomed people, their nuances and what makes them tick. And it’s clear from his hold over the players – telling them when they can talk and to whom and what and where they can eat - that they trust his judgement implicitly.
Firstly, he’s one of them: the first Emirati to be handed the role of UAE national coach on a permanent basis. And secondly, he has their unwavering respect, having guided most in this current set-up since the age of 14.
What he’s already achieved with these players cannot be taken away from him; whether it be London 2012 Olympic qualification, the 2006 U17 and 2010 U23 Gulf Cups, the 2008 U19 Asian Cup or an Asian Games silver medal in 2010. They also reached the quarter-finals of the 2009 U20 World Cup.
They’ve grown through glory and despair under Ali, also losing teammate Diab Awana in a car accident in September 2011. And for his part in the development of these players as people, he’s regarded as a father.
But emotions, hot and cold, don’t fuel Ali’s project alone. Discipline and meticulous planning add to an already powerful formula of understanding, which so many overpaid foreign coaches down the years have struggled to replicate.
Ali said: “If you have two coaches, one foreign and one local, and both are equal, I think it’s better to give the local coach the opportunity.
“He knows the region, knows how to deal with the players and he can speak to the players without translation. Foreign coaches can get a translator, but they cannot convey emotion.”
Having enjoyed a 15-year playing career at Al Ahli Club, from 1983 to 1998, the former midfielder learnt everything about loyalty and sense of belonging.
But his spell as a player with the UAE national team would teach him about heartache and regret, playing for five years in the build-up to his country’s World Cup debut in 1990 under Carlos Alberto Parreira, only to miss the finals through injury.
Ali said: “It really hurt me when I realised I would not be able to travel to Italy for the finals. After all, when you work hard and qualify, you hope to play. To see those hopes get dashed is definitely not a very nice feeling.”
Business may have been left unfinished for Ali, but life wasn’t. He graduated from Dubai College of Technology as an electrical engineer and began work with the Dubai Municipality, setting up the Road Transport Authority (RTA) and masterminding the ticketing scheme for Dubai’s parking and metro.
His work developed an acute attention to detail within him that when he transferred back into his passion for football proved a deadly combination. He took charge of the Al Ahli U10s in 1998 and became UAE U16 assistant coach in 2003.
“As an engineer and being a government employee of Dubai Municipality and the RTA, you have projects with goals and targets that you need to achieve on a daily basis.
“And I think being a manager, you have to manage your staff and take the maximum output from these employees. You have to know how to encourage them, motivate them and get the most out of them. I think it’s similar to the players. For us it’s the same. We have targets we need to achieve,” he added.
“They say football is a case of human management and my job is the same. I have to use each player at the right place and the right time, and all the time they have to have goals to reach.
“That’s why I’m happy to have been through all these experiences. It’s helped me a lot with my job, especially in planning my daily routine.”
They call Mahdi’s men the ‘Golden Generation’ but their assembly didn’t come by any statistical chance. It’s as dependent on Ali’s leadership and hard work as it is on their correlating birth and natural ability. Without one another, they would be nowhere. And it begs the question: what if there were Alis for every batch of players or one like him in every club?
“So many people see us on TV and talk about strategy, vision and mission. But they don’t talk about operation plan, because whatever you do you need to have an operation plan. That’s the most important thing.
“With our operation plan, everybody knows his role and responsibility in the team and we have been following this model a long time with the players, they know us and we know them.”
As irregular as one of Ali’s smiles, UAE football could hit the heights again with victory over Kuwait in Tuesday’s Gulf Cup semi-final.
Whether he can keep them there is a mission Ali, like all good managers, will lead his players to believe they can achieve.
