Dubai: UAE Football Association (Uaefa) president Yousuf Al Sarkal is targeting a top three finish in the upcoming Asian Cup in Australia from January 9-31.
The Whites will play recent Gulf Cup champions Qatar, Bahrain and highest ranked Asian nation Iran in Group C from Sunday, where Al Sarkal has prioritised getting out of the group before proceeding to the latter stages.
“We have been wishing for so many years to get to the top of Asia, and if not the summit, we want the UAE team to be one of the best. This is one of the goals we have been working on from junior level to the first team,” he said.
“We are currently ranked fifth out of 45 Asian countries but we want to be inside the top three.
“Through this participation we wish to pass the primary stages up to fourth position and above, but we will have to take it step by step.
“Our group is not that easy, which makes it difficult. Iran is currently the highest ranked team in Asia and Qatar are the recent Gulf Cup champions. But I have full confidence in the technical ability of the team and only hope we aren’t affected by other factors.
“Our first priority is to pass the group stage and make it into the last eight, after that we can start thinking about the latter stages.”
Al Sarkal said injury worries surrounding star player Omar Abdul Rahman had subsided, and that the team were ready to make up for the disappointment for a third place finish in the Gulf Cup in Saudi Arabia in November.
“We had some problems with Omar being injured but he is continuing to recover and should be ready to join official matches, in general we have passed this problem and don’t have any more injuries.
“It was very hard for us not to make the final in the Gulf Cup but now we are here [in the Asian Cup] we hope that we will make our mark on the tournament and bring happiness to our fans.”
