UAE Olympic hopefuls to play in friendly with Dalian

Abu Dhabi: The UAE Under-23 football team will continue their preparations for their London Olympics qualifier against Australia on February 22 by playing a friendly match against Chinese club side Dalian on Wednesday at Zayed Sports City.

The UAE lead Group B on goal difference ahead of Uzbekistan - both teams have eight points from four matches - and their head-to-head encounter in March will decide which team will win promotion to the Games this summer, irrespective of the results the two teams achieve in their respective matches this month.

Mahdi Ali, the UAE team's head coach, decided to close his team's friendly match to all fans and media in order to keep his preparations secret from Australian and Uzbek eyes - in particular as the Uzbeks are holding a training camp in the UAE as they prepare to face Iraq in Qatar next week.

"We don't want to distract the concentration of our players before our important match against Australia." Ali said today (Tuesday). "We know this match will not decide our promotion but it is of great importance to win it to give the players the motivation to keep winning after beating Iraq in our last match in Doha."

Ahmad Khalil, the team's striker who missed the last match because of injury, has returned to the squad and is expected to play against Dalian so the technical staff can decide if he is ready to play against Australia next week.