Kuala Lumpur: UAE coach Mahdi Ali stressed the need for his players to get off to the best start possible in their opening 2018 World Cup qualifier against Timor-Leste at the Shah Alam Stadium from midday (UAE time) here on Tuesday.
Speaking at Monday’s pre-match press conference at the Grand Blue Wave Hotel in Shah Alam, Ali told the media that only a win to start the eight-match second round campaign would do for him. “Qualification is very important for us, especially as the UAE haven’t qualified to a World Cup since 1990, so having a good start to this campaign is key,” he said.
As a player, Ali missed out on the 1990 World Cup through injury but said getting back to the finals as a coach would be the next best thing.
“It’s not just me though, even the players have played in all competitions from youth to first teams and for them it’s a dream and I wish for all these players to get there because they deserve it,” he added.
“They deserve to play in a World Cup because it’s the biggest competition in the world and it’s every player’s dream to play in one. It’s also important for me personally, but we shouldn’t talk about this yet because we have an important match tomorrow and we have to focus on that game.”
Despite Timor-Leste’s lowly position, 73 places below 73rd ranked UAE, who finished third in January’s Asian Cup, Ali said his players should be on guard against the minnows, who have reached the second round for the first time in their history and currently occupy their best-ever ranking of 146th.
“East Timor’s coach used to play in the UAE and they have players who play in UAE at the moment, so they know a lot about us,” he added.
“We saw many surprises in the first round of qualification and we know there are no big or small teams, whoever prepares hardest on the field and works the best in training will take the result. And I hope our team does its best to have a good start in this competition.”
Of the UAE’s lacklustre 3-0 friendly defeat to South Korea on Thursday, however, Ali warned fans not to be too concerned. “At the end of the day it was a friendly to prepare the players for this game [Timor-Leste] and to give other players a chance to perform and know what level they are at before I select the best players for this match,” he said.
“I would have hoped we had one more friendly before the South Korea game because they are one of the best teams in Asia, but for me it was a friendly and the result wasn’t important.
“I was preparing players and it gave us a lot of ideas for what we have to do for this game and in which areas we need to work on more, especially as our last camp together was five months ago. You don’t see many national teams stop for this long and then play friendlies after such a big gap, we tried to do our best with a good camp to overcome all these things.
“We came here [Malaysia] early [June 5] to prepare for the game but it hasn’t been good timing for us because the game is coming at the end of the season and many players finished late or too early depending on how their teams did in the President’s Cup. We managed to work around all these problems though and thankfully, everyone is in good shape and all the players are ready for this game.”
