UAE settle for goalless draw against Al Wahda

The UAE's under junior football team lacked the final killing touch and settled for a goalless tie against their counterparts from Al Wahda Club. The match was held in preparations for the Asian under-17 finals, to be held in the UAE from September 6.

The UAE have dominated the match, but failed to score as their captain Saeed Al Saygh and strikers Ahmed Jumaa and Abdullah Al Noobi missed sitters which resulted from beautifully-organised moves from the left.

Georges Korac, the team's French coach, started the match with the team that won the International Friendly Tournament in Iran last week. Yousuf Abdullah was in goal.

Tilal Abdullah, Nasir Khamis, Mahmoud Mohammed and Osama Jaafar in defence. Al Saygh, Faisal Mohammed, Abdullah Mubarak and Abdul Karim Abdullah in midfield. Ahmed and Al Noobi in attack as the coach applied his traditional 4:4:2 strategy.

The UAE took control despite the humid and the hot weather that sapped the energy of the players who missed no chance to come to the touch-line to quench their thirst.

They created many scoring chances, but their forwards missed those as the Al Wahda's defenders and custodian effected many saves.

Al Saygh, the team captain and midfielder, missed two scoring chances within the first 14 minutes. Then Ahmed Jumaa watched in dismay his brilliant curling ball shave the upleft.

Al Noobi's beautiful shot rebounded off the upright and Abdullah Mubarak's long-range shot missed the post by centimetres just before the referee announced the end of the first half.

UAE's custodian Yousuf Abdullah saved two dangerous moves with some outstanding goalkeeping, especially against Ahmed Hassan's last minute fierce shot from outside the penalty box.

Korac made several substitutions at the start of the second half. He brought in Omar Abdul Rahman instead of Al Noobi in attack, Salim Abdullah replaced Abdullah Mubarak in the midfield and Ahmed Al Buraiki in goal.

During the second half he also used the services of Thani Jumaa in defence in place of the injured Mahmoud, Faisal Salim replaced Ahmed Jumaa and Ahmed Khalfan substituted Al Saygh. But the result remained goalless as Omar missed a sitter and Faisal watched in horror his lob over the advancing goalie miss the wide open net.

"It was a good experiment." Korac said. "We used all our players and we still have a last match tomorrow (Sunday) against Al Jazira at 8:15 pm as our last preparation before we kick off our campaign in the Asian championship against Myanmar at the same timing next Friday.

"We made some mistakes in finish, but I am satisfied with the overall performance," the Frenchman concluded.