Dubai: The UAE’s campaign in Fifa Arab Cup came to a grinding halt in the quarter final when current Asian Cup champions and hosts Qatar beat them 5-0 in a first-half blitz on Friday night.
Qatar, next year’s World Cup hosts, will now take on will take on either Morocco or Algeria with the North Africans facing off in their last-eight clash in Doha late on Saturday. Tunisia are through to the last four already after defeating Oman 2-1 earlier on Friday.
A disappointed UAE manager Bert van Marwijk told the media after the game: “First of all, it’s the first experience in my life, in my whole career. It sounds crazy, but in the first half we played good football. Only that actually we made all the goals ourselves, at least four. If you make such mistakes, the goals, then you get a game like this. It’s crazy.
“We do our utmost best all the time, we prepared the team as good as possible, very well I think, and there was confidence. You saw it in the beginning the way we play. We were better. It sounds crazy, for the third time, but if you make such mistakes... we gave the goals away ourselves.”
‘The Whites’ got off to a nightmarish start when as early as in the sixth minute, an unforced mistake from Mohanad Salem led to an Ali Salmeen own goal. This opened the floodgates as Qatar doubled their lead just before the half hour when a Mahmoud Khamis handball gifted the home side a penalty. Striker Almoez Ali converted from the spot.
