Vercauteren and Hasek share same concerns ahead of Pro League opener

Franky Vercauteren will be looking for a winning start to his Pro League coaching career, when the defending champions Al Jazira host Al Ahli at 9pm, Saturday, in a clash of two early favourites for the title.

Ahli were eighth last season as Jazira cruised to the championship, but the Dubai club have made numerous changes.

First, Ivan Hasek, who guided them to the 2008 President's Cup and the 2009 Pro League title has returned to coach the side. Ahli have strengthened with three impressive signings - Grafite, Jakson Coelho and Luis Jimenez.

Vercauteren knows the attacking potential of these players, but is calmly confident of getting a positive result tonight.

"Ahli are a team with some good players on the offensive side - players who can make a difference, creative players," said Vercauteren, a former Belgian international who replaced Abel Braga in the off-season. "So, a difficult team to play. [But] we need a result at the beginning of the league. The beginning of everything is always important. You cannot miss the start. If you miss the start, you are already behind.

"First, you play to win. Second, you expect your team to play a good game and entertain the fans. That is also part of our job, but things don't always work like that. So let's hope we play well and win."

Jazira lost their last Etisalat Cup game, 4-2 to Al Ain, with seven players on national duty. Vercauteren said the team's for Al Ahli has been adversely affected by their absence.

"How can we prepare as well as we want to if we are missing seven players? And, on the other side, we don't know how they will come back [from the national team]," he said. "That means I will have to talk to them, see what they have done. We don't know how they have trained, what shape they are in. The most important thing for them is to recover as quickly as possible from a difficult trip, to be as fresh as possible."

Vercauteren said that a coach must accept the fact that training will be interrupted: "You cannot do a lot. You have to live with the fact that the preparations are in two splits - one with the players who are here and other one with the players who are coming, hopefully without any problems and in good shape."

Hasek had the same concerns about his players coming back from the national team.

"I hope the players coming back from the national team are not injured," he said.

"This is very important. It's not just about Al Jazira. Three days after that, we have the second leg of the GCC Club Championship semi-final in Kuwait.

"We know Jazira are a big team, the best team at the moment in the country. They have a solid defence and score a lot of goals, as well.

"So we need all our players to be at the top of their concentration for the start of the league and the GCC semi-final."

arizvi@thenational.ae

MARION HOPES FOR SIMILAR RESULT

After making a dream start at Dubai with a 5-0 drubbing of Diego Maradona's Al Wasl, Ion Marion is hoping for a similar result in Ras Al Khaimah against Emirates, who stunned Al Wahda in their last game.

“I hope we can get another good result to start off the league,” said the Romanian.

In tonight's other match, with three convincing wins from four Etisalat Cup matches, Al Shabab host Wahda, who have lost three consecutive games but have been without eight of their national team players.

"We are not going to talk about the past," said Haidar Ali, the Wahda captain. "Our team is ready and we want to start positively."