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UAE ready for crucial clash
Hard work, determination and complete focus will be the essential components to guide the UAE to victory in its crucial match against Kuwait .
- By Yasir Abbasher, Staff Reporter
- Published: 23:50 February 5, 2008
- The UAE striker Esmail Mattar is likely to play a crucial role in the team's fortunes in the World Cup qualifier against traditional rivals Kuwait in Abu Dhabi today.
- Image Credit: Gulf News Archive
Abu Dhabi: Hard work, determination and complete focus will be the essential components to guide the UAE to victory in on Wednesday night's crucial match against Kuwait in their Asian qualifiers opener for the 2010 World Cup.
"We have to give 200 per cent effort to beat Kuwait," Rashid Abdul Rahman, the UAE libero and captain, said.
The UAE have been plagued by a goal drought. They played a total of 540 minutes in six friendlies without a single goal and scoring more goals than the opponents is the only way to go forward in realising their dream of returning to the world big stage, a feat the UAE achieved in 1990 when they reached the finals in Italy in only their second attempt.
UAE's head coach, Bruno Metsu, has never been scared to attack even against opponents like AC Milan, Vasco Da Gama, China and Iraq.
The team succeeded in creating many scoring chances, but the lack of finishing touch deprived them of fruitful ends to their moves.
"We will be very focused in the rival's penalty box during the official matches and we will not lose more chances. We have to score goals to win the points," Rashid told Gulf News.
The UAE have showed more promise up front when they applied 4:4:2 with Esmail Mattar and Faisal Khalil combining together in attack, while both Ahmad Dada and Mohammad Al Shehhi operated on the flanks.
But different matches need different combination of players and different tasks and, of course, different strategies and Metsu's complete knowledge of Kuwait will help greatly in applying the suitable plan of play.
Majid Nasir will start on goal and Rashid, Basheer Saeed, Hayder Allo Ali and, mostly, Obaid Khalifa will play in defence with Hilal Saeed and Subait Khater or Nawaf Mubarak playing pivots.
The team should also concentrate on the defence in order to prevent Kuwait from scoring, especially in the first and last 15 minutes of the match which always has negative effects upon the players and usually decide the outcome of the encounter.
The matches between the UAE and Kuwait have always been full of excitement and enjoyment because it is a sort of derby. The traditional rivalry was created more than 30 years ago in the Gulf Cup.
The match kicks off at 7:15pm at Mohammad Bin Zayed Stadium in Al Jazira Club.
Update: Closed door training
The UAE held their last training session at the venue of the match behind closed doors.
Metsu opted for a secret sessions, away from the spying eyes of the rivals with predictions that the head coach is hiding a surprise up his sleeve. The training was mainly for the selected line-up of tonight's match.
Meanwhile, the venue of the match, Mohammad Bin Zayed Stadium, has become a victory site for the UAE.
The team have never lost a match recently at the venue in which they defeated Kuwait, Yemen, Saudi Arabia in the Gulf Cup to emerge champions and trounced Vietnam 5-0 in the first round of the Asian qualifiers for the World Cup.
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