Dubai The UAE coach is hoping the experience of playing in the AFC Under-22 Championship qualifiers in Muscat will enable his young stars to be worthy successors in the Olympic and senior squads in the near future.
“The focus is not just on this competition but to see what these youngsters can achieve for the Olympic and seniors teams in the near future,” Badr Saleh told Gulf News as he led his side in a training session at Al Wasl Club late on Tuesday.
“We have five players in this side who were formerly in the Olympic squad that is currently in Switzerland.
“They bring in a lot of experience and hopefully they will be able to pass it on to the rest of their teammates for the sake of continuity in the national team structure.”
The UAE go in as strong favourites to win Group A after being clubbed with India, Oman, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkmenistan, beginning at the Al Seeb Sports Stadium in Muscat from Saturday.
There are seven groups consisting of 41 teams with the top two from each group and one best third place team qualifying for the finals of the competition to be held in 2013. The 16th team will be the hosts, who qualify automatically.
This competition replaces the Olympic Football Tournament Asian Qualifiers and will be the second biggest national team competition, after the AFC Asian Cup, held every four years.
“We have an objective before us and we want to go through the qualifying as one of the best teams in Asia,” Saleh said.
“The bunch of players in the Olympic team that is now training in Switzerland has shown us the way and we hope we can continue with this success for the UAE.”
Though the UAE is one of the higher ranked teams in the group, the coach refuses to take any of their opponents lightly.
“In age-group football, it is difficult to see too much of a difference between teams. So we would rather prefer taking it one match at a time,” he added.
The UAE get their campaign underway with a match against the hosts at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex in Muscat after India and Lebanon play the opener on Saturday.
