Abu Dhabi: It is time for celebrations as the UAE Olympic team realised the dreams of the people to appear in the 2012 London Olympic Games with the best 16 teams in the world in the biggest sporting event in the arena.
However, there are two very important things which the UAE FA should take care of as early as possible. The first is the necessity of starting to plan how to prepare the team for London in order to perform with the true worth and add another achievements to their already bright record of regional, continental and international victories since 2006.
The UAE FA has a golden chance at this particular moment because everyone is happy with the historic achievement and all facilities will be available for the team to prepare well in order to face the world's top teams in the Olympiad. Hence, the planning should be big and the friendly matches should be against the top teams like Brazil, Britain and Spain - to name a few from those who occupy the top positions in the fifa monthly rankings.
It would be also beneficial for the team if their key players like Ahmad Khalil, Ahmad Ali, Ali Mabkhoot, Khalid Eissa, Habboush Saleh, Omar Abdul Rahman and the others play regular competitive matches with their clubs in domestic competitions because the sad part is that most of them are kept on the substitute benches of their clubs.
Who can believe that all the members of the forward line of the Olympic team: Khalil, Ali and Mabkhoot are not regular starters with their clubs, Al Ahli, Bani Yas and Al Jazira, respectively?
The second thing is the importance of honouring all those who participated in the achievement but are not available to take the credit, in particular the late Diab Awana who played at the start of the qualifiers before his tragic demise and Mohammad Khalfan Al Rumaithi, the former FA Chairman, who resigned during the World Cup qualifiers and who was the godfather of the Olympic team.
