UAE team leave for training stint in Austria

Abu Dhabi: The UAE senior national football team Saturday left for a training camp in Austria that will kick off their preparations for the Gulf Cup in Yemen in November and the Asian Cup in Qatar next January.

The training camp will see the national team face Moldova in a friendly on May 29 before travelling the next day to Germany where they will play another friendly against Algeria on June 6. The team will return home on June 7 to allow the players a short break before joining their club teams ahead of the new season which will kick off in August.

"The players are ready physically after emerging from a long and competitive season and the concentration of the technical staff will be on tactical points," Esmail Rashid, the manager of the team, told Gulf News yesterday. "It is a very important phase of the team and we are giving this camp a great emphasis to prepare the players for their coming obligations."

Club commitments

The team has left without Ali Khaseef, Subait Khater, Khalid Sabeel, Salem Masoud and Sultan Bargash, all of whom represented Al Jazira in the Etisalat Cup final against Ajman. The five players will leave today to join their colleagues in Austria after they were allowed by the technical staff to take a day off to see their families before leaving for Europe.