Youth soccer team win a morale booster

Abu Dhabi: The success achieved by the UAE Under-19 soccer team was unprecedented because there was never a team in the history of the game who had won six matches successively in a continental or international competition and who topped that by winning the Asian Youth Championship, the first Asian title for the country at any level.

The talent, the fighting spirit and tactical maturity are all signs of a prospective future formidable team.

The good news is that the brilliance of the UAE youngsters comes at a time in which the country's senior team is passing through a dark tunnel after almost losing all hope in the Asian qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup and only four days before the seniors encounter Iran on Wednesday. Hopefully this will raise the morale of the elder players and convince them where there is a will, there is a way.

The youth team have made history and won the Asian Championship in style. They defeated all the traditional powerhouses of the continent including Iraq, the reigning Asian Cup Champions, South Korea, a regular representative of the continent in the finals of the World Cup since 1986, Saudi Arabia, the hosts who boast of four consecutive finals of the World Cup since 1994, Australia, the new members of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the highest ranked team by Fifa, in addition to Syria, a former Asian Youth Champions, and Uzbekistan, the fast improving team with European physical strength and speed.

Heroes

The players who turned into heroes were unknown to most football fans, Some came from the forgotten first division league featuring in clubs like Bani Yas and Al Ittihad from Kalba and the others came from the reserve benches of the top clubs featuring from time to time in the last minutes of their team's matches such as Ahmad Khalil, Al Ahli and Hamdan Al Kamali and Ahmad Ali, Al Wahda.

But despite all that calls have already spread for Dominique Bathenay, the head coach of the senior team, to invite most of them to join the senior team or to replace the youth team. But the young players need more experience to be able to face stronger opponents and they also need patience to achieve this.

The UAE FA, we are sure, will be determined to provide excellent preparation for the youth team before taking part in next year's Fifa Youth World Cup in Egypt and until then, the boys will surely be the centre of attention of renowned local professional clubs.