Abu Dhabi: UAE football team captain Esmail Mattar says only victory will do when his team take on Hong Kong away at 4pm on Tuesday in Group E of the AFC Asian Cup qualifiers.
The winner of the encounter will take the lead in the group, which also features Uzbekistan and Vietnam, as the UAE have six points from two matches while Hong Kong are second with four.
If the UAE win their away and home matches with Hong Kong — they host their rivals on November 15 — they will qualify for the AFC Asian Cup finals in Australia in 2015.
“It is a must for us to win this particular match because it will open the door for us to reach the finals,” Mattar said. “We have a good chance of securing our berth in Australia before the end of the qualifiers and we will do our best to achieve that goal.”
However, the veteran striker is not expected to start the match after being out injured and head coach Mahdi Ali is expected to use his two younger strikers Ahmad Khalil and Ali Mabkhoot, who both scored in the 3-1 friendly win over Malaysia last week.
Ali Khaseef will start in goal and captain the side, with Mohammad Ahmad, Abdul Aziz Haikal, Waleed Abbass and Mohannad Al Enazy, Esmail Ahmad or Hamdan Al Kamali in defence.
Amer Abdul Rahman, Khamis Esmail, Omar Abdul Rahman and Habib Al Fardan will feature in midfield, while Khalil and Mabkhoot will lead the attack.
In their two matches in the competition so far, the UAE have recorded 2-1 victories over Vietnam away and against Uzbekistan at home.
Hong Kong became the surprise package of the group when they drew 0-0 with favourites Uzbekistan before going on to beat Vietnam 1-0.
The team’s strength is in the defensive department and they are yet to concede a goal in their group matches.
Meanwhile, former AFC Asian Cup winners Iraq and Saudi Arabia face off in Amman on Tuesday evening as the two former continental champions seek to further improve their chances of qualifying for the AFC Asian Cup Australia 2015.
The pair meet in Group C with Saudi Arabia, a three-time winner of the Asian title in 1984, 1988 and 1996, leading the standings with six points from their opening two games, which see them sitting three points clear of 2007 champions Iraq and China.
Saudi Arabia have never failed to qualify for the finals of the AFC Asian Cup since first playing in the competition in 1984 and have appeared in the final of the tournament a record six times.
With only the top two teams in each group guaranteed to progress to the finals in Australia in January 2015, the focus is on Saudi Arabia coach Juan Roman Lopez Caro, who took over following Frank Rijkaard’s disappointing tenure, to maintain his side’s qualifying form.
The Chinese, meanwhile, take on Indonesia in Jakarta knowing they need to win to keep the pressure on both the Saudis and Iraq as caretaker boss Fu Bo seeks to build on the country’s encouraging performance at the East Asian Cup during the summer.
Qatar, hosts of the 2011 AFC Asian Cup finals when they reached the last eight, took the opportunity to move into joint-top spot with Bahrain in Group D on Sunday evening in Doha as Fahad Thani’s side notched up a 6-0 win over Yemen.
The meeting between the two nations was played two days earlier than the rest of the qualifying matches for the AFC Asian Cup Australia 2015. Former AFC Player of the Year Khalfan Ebrahim scored a hat-trick in a comfortable win over a Yemen side reduced to 10 men for the entire second half.
“We deserved to win tonight and, despite the big victory, we didn’t play as well as the result suggests,” said Thani. “We tried our best to win tonight and we worked very well, especially in the last third of the pitch. Our chances are still open as Bahrain still have a match against Malaysia. We shouldn’t be fooled by this result and we must work hard as the road is still long.”
Bahrain travel to Kuala Lumpur to face Malaysia on Tuesday evening off the back of a loss against Thailand in a friendly in Bangkok on Thursday and are looking to secure a third straight win in qualifying after victories over Qatar and Yemen so far.
In Group A, Jordan will be aiming to maintain the run of form that has seen them progress to the play-offs for the Fifa World Cup finals when they host Paul Le Guen’s Oman.
Oman lead Group A by two points from the Jordanians while Syria and Singapore — who meet at Singapore’s Jalan Besar Stadium — trail behind in the quest for the two qualifying berths.
