Abu Dhabi: The UAE's hopes of appearing in their first-ever Olympic Games were dented yesterday as they went down 2-0 to Iraq in the Asian qualifiers for the 2012 London Olympic Games.
Uzbekistan lead Group B following their goalless tie with Australia earlier in the day to collect five points from three matches followed by Iraq with 4 points, Australia 3 points and the UAE 2 points.
The UAE once again had near complete command of the match but failed to score. They were slow in building their attacking moves which gave the Iraqis time and space to cover their back while two fast counter attacks from the opponents were enough to yield two goals and secure the points for Iraq and both moves were from the right flank of the field.
Counter attack
In the 20th minute, Amjad Khalaf led a fast move and went past Mohammad Fayez, the left fullback, and sent a cross to Mohammad Karrar who placed home a weak rebound from Khalid Eisa, the home custodian.
The UAE increased their pressure on midfield and created some good chances but their strikers, Ali Mabkhoot and Ahmad Khalil, were closely marked as the Iraqis closed all routes to their net.
The second half started with the home team continuing their attempts to level the score and tried long range shots, but all their attempts failed only to go further down in the 76th minute when Amjad Radhi broke free on the right flank and crossed to Nabeel Sabah who placed home the second goal for Iraq.
But despite the defeat there is still hope as there is only three-point difference between Uzbekistan, the leaders of the group, and the UAE and there are still three matches remaining. However, Mahdi Ali, the UAE head coach, and his assistants should find solutions to the problem of scoring as the team has so far played three matches without scoring a single goal, same as their Australian counterparts who ended all their three matches in goalless ties.
In Tokyo, Borussia Monchengladbach's summer signing Yuki Otsu's 86th-minute winner gave Japan a 2-1 win over Syria and the outright lead in Group A with a maximum nine points.
Meanwhile, South Korea needed a first-half penalty as they edged Saudi Arabia 1-0 to stay at the top of Group A.
— With inputs from agencies
RESULTS
Group A
South Korea 1 Saudi Arabia 0
Group B
Australia 0 Uzbekistan 0
UAE 0 Iraq 2
Group C
Japan 2 Syria 1
