UAE refuse to look beyond East Timor with 2018 World Cup progress back on track

ABU DHABI // The UAE’s chances of topping the group for an automatic berth in the final round of 2018 World Cup qualification improved dramatically after the rescheduled second leg between Saudi Arabia and Palestine ended in a scoreless draw on Monday.

The UAE face the bottom team East Timor on Thursday night at the Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium and travel to Kuala Lumpur to face Malaysia five days later, and three points each from the games, which they are expected to achieve, will put Mahdi Ali’s men back in the race for the top spot in Group A.

Predictably, the UAE coach played down the outcome of the Saudi Arabia-Palestine match.

“As I have told before, regardless of the result of that game we want to win the remaining four matches. That will be our objective,” the Emirati said on Wednesday.

“Of course, that result provides us a little advantage but our strategy hasn’t changed. At this point of time we are not looking beyond our match against East Timor.”

East Timor, according to their coach, Fernando Alcantara, have adopted a new strategy for the second-leg games.

They have dropped the seven Brazilians who had been cleared to play for the former Portuguese colony following three defeats and a draw against Malaysia in the first-leg games and, instead, travelled to Abu Dhabi with seven young Timorese.

“We are working on a new strategy with a younger squad. We had seven Brazilian payers when we lost to UAE in the first leg. Now we are fielding only Timorese,” Alcantara said.

Mahdi Ali said he cannot be concerned by the strategic plans of other sides.

“What the other team does is not a concern for us,” he said. “It’s another important game for us and, as usual, our focus will only be on the match we are going to play.”

He also dismissed suggestions that Al Ahli players are “tired” as they had to play in both the domestic Arabian Gulf League and the first leg of the Asian Champions League final.

“Some people think the players are exhausted but they are not,” Mahdi Ali said. “They played their last domestic league game on October 29 and the ACL match on November 7.

“If they are exhausted I will be the first one to notice that, but they are not. They haven’t had many games other than the ACL match, which I know was a very taxing encounter.

“When I name the starting list I’m not looking only at the Al Ahli players but the best available XI that I have assembled. The players are all ready and there are aware of the task ahead.”

Omar Abdulrahman, the Al Ain playmaker, will be absent through a one-game suspension, and Khamis Ismail has been ruled out because of injury.

The Timorese coach was relieved when he learnt Abdulrahman will not play on Thursday night.

“This information is good news for us,” he said. “But we also have seven players absent. We have brought in new young players. My objective is to play a good game and use this game to provide experience to my players.”

Alcantara made no secret about his ploy.

“My plan is very simple,” he said. “When we don’t have possession all our players will fall back in defence. The reason is that the UAE are strong opponents while we are going to experiment.”

Follow us on Twitter @NatSportUAE