Abu Dhabi: Bangladesh, the heroes of the first round of Group D qualifiers for the Asian under-16 Championship, emerged the villains as hosts UAE trounced them 9-1 yesterday.
Yasir Salman was the hero for the UAE side, scoring four goals. Haddaf Abdulla and Mohammad Ahmad scored two goals each, while Fahad Salem added one more to complete the tally.
Bangladesh's goal was scored by Suhail to salvage some prestige for his team.
Bangladesh were the former group leaders, following their victory over Palestine.
Bangladesh played a good first half which ended 2-0, but surrendered to a better UAE side in the second with their defences wide open for the home strikers to score at will.
The UAE currently lead the standings.
Meanwhile, the UAE national team coach, Ali Ebrahim, was all praise for his players, following their big victory over Bangladesh.
"The players were fantastic, they proved their true worth," Ebrahim said at a press conference after the match.
"It was important to score as many goals as possible because it will increase the players' confidence in their capacities and at the same time brighten our hopes of winning promotion to the finals of the Asian Junior Championship," Ebrahim added.
"We are looking forward to a similar show in our next matches, although we don't expect to win all the remaining matches by a similar margin."
The UAE will face Palestine, the weakest team in the group, tomorrow. Palestine had lost 9-1 to Bangladesh in an earlier match.
"We will not take Palestine for granted, despite their results in the earlier matches. We will be very serious in the match against them," Ebrahim commented.
