Tashkent: The UAE fans ran amok in celebration in the airport departure lounge of Tashkent here on Wednesday night, donning red, green and black wigs and chanting Ahmad Khalil's name amid a carnival-like atmosphere.
The party left town and followed the team back to Dubai on chartered flights — leaving Uzbekistan to transcend into utter desolation.
Only thoughts and feelings on the game, as well as confetti and shattered dreams, were left on the streets here by fans before they filed through check in and into passport control.
While distracting attention away from the UAE senior team's poor run of form recently, crashing out of the 2011 Asian Cup and 2014 World Cup qualification, fans said this U-23 side has brought salvation to the country and restored hope in football for the future here, when all around the outlook was bleak.
One fan, Saoud Abdul Rahman, 25, elated from the team's 3-2 win over Uzbekistan at JAR Stadium thanks to a second half turnaround, said: "It would have been such a hard loss for us to handle having travelled all this way in one-day, but they came back from nowhere and did us all proud.
"They played well despite a slow start in the first half and they were able to turn it around raising their level tremendously. I'm so happy.
"This is a different generation to the one that failed at the Asia Cup and in World Cup qualification. Add a few players from the senior team and this unit we have now under Mahdi Ali will go far."
World rankings
Ebrahim Al Hosani, 23, added: "This is by far the UAE's best team of all-time and we hope they can go on to achieve much more than this. Not just London or the Olympics, we want them to be up the world rankings, contending for the Asia Cup and getting into the World Cup. Finally this is the team to do it.
"They have been together for a long time now since a young age under Mahdi Ali and I think under him they will continue to make us strong. Even at 2-0 down we didn't lose hope because they have shown time and again that they can pull a victory from defeat."
One fan, Salim Al Obeidi, 22, who hopes to travel to London, said: "We did something special as fans to encourage them to come back from the loss and we all hope to visit London to support them in a similar manner at the Olympic Games.
"The team's spirit and bond has come from knowing and playing against each other for a very long time under this coach and results up to now in other youth level tournaments prove there is great hope. Travelling to London for sure helps us forget about our disappointment with the senior team competitions."
