Fans take to social media to call for UAE coach Mahdi Ali’s sacking

Abu Dhabi: Angry Emirati fans vented against the embattled UAE coach Mahdi Ali on social media after the Whites’ disastrous 3-0 defeat in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday evening.

‘Mahdi Ali’ and ‘Sack Mahdi Ali’ became top-trending hashtags on Twitter in the UAE following the country’s second defeat in four 2018 Fifa World Cup qualifiers.

In the summer, the UAE Football Association launched a ‘Together We Can’ social-media campaign aimed at inspiring the UAE to their second World Cup finals.

But in a sarcastic reference to this on musing on the Whites’ fading qualification hopes, one Twitter user, @ralfalasi, tweeted in the early hours of Wednesday morning: “No chance at all, if we still have the engineer Mahdi Ali in charge of uae national team #togetherwecan.”

The 51-year-old Ali, who earned eight caps as a midfielder for his country between 1985 and 1990, has enjoyed a long and distinguished coaching career with the UAE.

He began working with the under-16 team as an assistant coach in 2003 and went on to lead the under-20 team to the last eight of the 2009 U-20 World Cup.

He then presided over the under-23 team’s Olympic debut at London 2012, before inspiring the senior side to Gulf Cup success a year later and third place at the 2015 AFC Asian Cup.