Dubai: The UAE Under-23 football team arrived in Malaysia on Tuesday ahead of their Asian Games participation in Indonesia from August 10 to September 2.
Polish coach Maciej Skorza’s side will face Bahrain, Malaysia, South Korea and Kyrgyzstan in Group E on August 10, 12, 15 and 17 respectively, before possible progression to the Last 16.
The UAE reached the quarter-finals of the last Asian Games in 2014 in South Korea and their best performance from a total four appearances was a silver medal at the 2010 Asian Games in China. Before this, they twice failed to get out of the group in 2002 and 2006.
Abdullah Al Janaibi, vice-president of the UAE Football Association, said: “This Olympic team includes a group of distinguished and talented elements, which will be of great interest to clubs and nationals teams in the future.
“They have the ambition and determination to achieve positive results at the Asian Games, which we have seen during training.
“Participation comes within our plans and endeavours to compete in future events and this is an opportunity to prove our capabilities ahead of qualifying for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.”
The UAE will have to play in a January 2020 Asian Under-23 qualifier to reach Tokyo, but to reach that qualifier they will first have to play in March 2019 qualifiers next year.
Skorza’s 23-man squad includes Shaheen Al Darmaki, Ahmad Al Gailani, Abdul Rahman Al Ameri, Khalifa Al Hammadi, Mohammad Al Attas, Zayed Al Ameri, Ahmad Al Hashemi, Abdullah Al Noobi, Abdullah Juma, Hamad Al Jasmi, Majid Surour, Esmail Khamis, Ali Gamail, Hussain Abdullah, Mohammad Al Harashi, Mohammad Al Masmari, Jasem Al Beloushi, Rashid Omar, Mohammad Abdullah, Ahmad Hilal, Mohammad Al Shamsi, Salem Al Sharji, Khalid Bawazeer and Sultan Al Mundari.
