Sport | Football
Preparing the team for the future
Most of the members of the UAE FA and football officials have agreed that the youth team should be prepared well and kept together for not only the finals of the Under-20 World Cup next year in Egypt, but also for the qualifiers of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games and for the qualifiers of the 2014 World Cup.
- By Yasir Abbasher, Senior Reporter
- Published: 18:48 November 16, 2008
Abu Dhabi: Most of the members of the UAE FA and football officials have agreed that the youth team should be prepared well and kept together for not only the finals of the Under-20 World Cup next year in Egypt, but also for the qualifiers of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games and for the qualifiers of the 2014 World Cup.
Rashid Al Zaabi, the head of the delegation in Saudi Arabia, told Gulf News “Keeping this team is a must if we want to have a capable team in the future. These boys have proved their worth by winning the Asian Championship. They are well organized, disciplined and highly talented. As a group they have complete mutual understanding of each other despite the fact that they play for different clubs.
“We, in the UAE FA, will be keen to provide them with the chance to earn more experience by organizing friendly tournaments and matches against strong teams and we will be patient for them to grow better in time.''
Mohammad Mattar Ghorab, the Chairman of the FA Competitions Committee, said, “The preparation of the team will be continuous. They will soon start preparing for the finals of the Under 20 World Cup in Egypt next year and after that they will form the UAE Olympic Under 23 team to take part in the qualifiers of the 2012 Olympic Games and after that they will be upgraded to the senior team to take part in the qualifiers of the 2014 World Cup.
“But the problem is that most of the players are not playing with the clubs in the domestic competitions and the FA can not force the clubs to use certain players the responsibility of that decision is shouldered by the clubs' coaches and managements and we expect them to cooperate with the FA and do what is good for the country.''
Yasir Salem, the former UAE and Al Wahda striker and the administrator of the youth team, said “I do believe that this team features the best talented players that the UAE have ever born. They are disciplined, passionate, gifted, motivated and fighters. They can be transformed to become the best ever team in the near future but that should happen by a long tern plan that must keep all of them together and I warn of upgrading some of them to the senior team prematurely.'' Salem should know, he was a player in the UAE youth team in the finals of the Fifa Under 20 World Cup in Malaysia in 1997 when they reached the second round of the competition.
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