Dubai: The UAE is expected to take advantage of playing at home when they face Portugal in the opening match of the Fifa Beach Soccer World Cup as the tournament gets under way on November 16.
Beach soccer became a part of the Fifa family in 2005, and in May the same year, the first Fifa Beach Soccer World Cup was staged at the famed Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro. To everyone's surprise, France defeated Portugal in the final, while hot favourites Brazil only managed a third place.
After ending behind France and Portugal in the inaugural edition in 2005, Brazil showed their pedigree in the next three successive tournaments to stamp their authority on the game, thus making them the hot favourites for the title in Dubai this time.
The Portuguese also come into this tournament with rich experience after finishing third last year in Marseilles, France, and having secured the fourth and second place in 2006 and 2005 respectively.
The UAE, as the host country, has automatically qualified for the seven-day tournament which also boasts of teams from six zones representing 16 nations — Côte d'Ivoire and Nigeria (Africa), Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain and Switzerland (Europe), Costa Rica and El Salvador (North, Central America and the Caribbean), Solomon Islands (Oceania), Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay (South America) and along two qualifiers from Asia.
Last year in Marseilles, the UAE, despite a spirited second half, lost to Russia 0-5 in the pre-quarters after having earlier overwhelmed Cameroon 10-4.
The UAE team is now expected to take advantage of home turf in as much as that they will be playing in familiar surroundings to the cheers of local fans. However, apart from that, the hosts have improved in leaps and bounds under their Brazilian coach Marcela Mendes.
Following their opener against Portugal on November 16, the UAE will also face the Solomon Islands (November 17) and Uruguay (November 18) in their groups matches.
