Abu Dhabi: UAE has been nursing the dream of featuring in the final round of football in an Olympic Games for a long time.
Their participation in the qualifiers started in 1984 for the Los Angels Olympic Games but they exited from the first round finishing third in the group behind Iraq , with 5 points, Bahrain 4 and the UAE 3 points after Lebanon withdrew from the qualifiers.
The UAE also finished third in the qualifiers for the Seoul Olympiad in 1988 when they came second behind Iraq in the qualifiers with 4 points, 3 points behind the leaders, and as many in front of Jordan in third place.
Four years on, the UAE failed again to win promotion to Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992 finishing behind Qatar, 13 points, Iran, 12, the UAE, 7, Yemen, 7 and Pakistan with no points.
In 1996, the UAE registered their best participation in the Olympic qualifiers as they finished the preliminary round of qualifiers for the Atlanta Olympic Games leading the group which also featured: Iran and Turkmenistan but finished fourth in the final stage as Japan headed the group with 7 points a better goal difference than Iraq with the same tally followed by Oman with 3 points while the UAE failed to collect a single point.
The Failure continued in 2000 Sydney Olympic Games qualifiers as they finished runners up of the group that also included leaders Qatar and bottom team Yemen.
The UAE achieved some success in the qualifiers of the 2004 Athens Olympiad when they led the preliminary round which also featured Thailand and Tajikistan but finished third in the final stage behind Japan, 13 points, Bahrain, 11, UAE, 7 and Lebanon two points.
In 2008, the UAE failed again to promote from the first round of the qualifiers finishing third behind South Korea, 13 points, Uzbekistan, 12, the UAE, 6 and Yemen with 3 points to miss the chance of featuring in the Beijing Olympic Games.
Today, the UAE is just one small step away from realizing their Olympic dream and one single point will be enough for them to appear in London Olympiad in summer.
