That was the team, and theirs the performances, who stirred the hopes of UAE football supporters during the dark years of the senior national side.
The youth, the energy, the technical brilliance, the palpable unity of purpose - the qualities the UAE's special age-group team seemed to have all over the pitch. The qualities sorley lacking among their elder brothers, who once knocked down did not come back. Whose idea of victory was a scoreless draw. Who were as likely to put the ball in their own net as the opponent's.
It made for hard times. The single point from eight games in the final round of Asian qualifying for the 2010 World Cup. The goalless exit from the 2011 Asian Cup. The deflating, no-points-from-five-matches crash-out, last year, from the second-last round of qualifying for Brazil 2014.
Meanwhile, those kids who were in the age-group teams, coming up together, growing together, winning together, they kept a nation from football despair. "Things are grim now, but Mahdi Ali's team is not far away."
And now they have arrived.
If anyone missed their stirring run last year to the nation's first Olympic football berth or somehow overlooked, during London 2012, the 1-0 first-half lead over Luis Suarez's Uruguay, the 1-1 score after an hour with Ryan Giggs's Team GB and the 1-1 draw with a physically gifted Senegal side ... well, those young men were back on stage at the Gulf Cup last night.
And they showed they are ready to earn results at an important tournament at the senior level. Eleven young men in white, and not one over age 25.
Ali Mabkhout and Ahmed Khalil in a dynamic striker pairing. Omar Abdulrahman and Amer Abdulrahman forming a midfield duo of such exquisite technical gifts that it conjured images of Barcelona's midfield maestros. Ismail Al Hammadi complementing them and Khamis Esmael backing them up. Abdullah Mousa running dangerous overlaps up the left flank, Abdulaziz Sanquor on the right, and Hamdan Al Kamali and Mohammed Ahmed in the middle of the defence, and the steady Ali Kasheif in goal.
Their resounding 3-1 victory last night over a Qatar side still competing for a 2014 World Cup berth, and one which includes two naturalised South Americans and a Ghanan, was overrrun by the UAE's young guns. Not even a 11th-minute penalty, of doubtful provenance, could slow them.
Omar Abdulrahman levelled with a free kick from 20 yards that sailed over a four-man wall and found a soft home in the upper-right corner of the net. Ali Mabkhout's hustle play just before the half hour, when he took advantage of an unseen offside position to run on to a pass out of the back from Sanquor, push the ball into the box for Khalil, and pounce on his deflected pass gave the UAE the decisive goal.
Ahmed added the insurance tally in the 66th minute when he crisply headed a corner into the net, on a ball from that man Omar Abdulrahman.
Nothing about this team or that victory was accidental. They were carefully nurtured through the youth ranks, kept together and always led by Mahdi Ali, and they were hardened and sharpened to a fine edge during a month of training last June in Switzerland and Austria, ahead of that impressive Olympics.
And here they are.
Can they possibly win the 21st Gulf Cup? With three points already in their pocket, their chances of reaching the semi-finals are excellent. And they are unlikely to see anything in Bahrain that will be more intimidating than 60,000 in Old Trafford and Uruguay on the other side of the pitch, or 90,000 in Wembley with Team GB playing at home.
This is just the start, of course. Mahdi Ali and the FA will be thinking of this group at the 2015 Asian Cup, two years hence. And qualifying for the Russia 2018 World Cup in the same year.
The UAE team of the future? It finally is the UAE team of the present.
poberjuerge@thenational.ae
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What drives subscription retailing?
Once the domain of newspaper home deliveries, subscription model retailing has combined with e-commerce to permeate myriad products and services.
The concept has grown tremendously around the world and is forecast to thrive further, according to UnivDatos Market Insights’ report on recent and predicted trends in the sector.
The global subscription e-commerce market was valued at $13.2 billion (Dh48.5bn) in 2018. It is forecast to touch $478.2bn in 2025, and include the entertainment, fitness, food, cosmetics, baby care and fashion sectors.
The report says subscription-based services currently constitute “a small trend within e-commerce”. The US hosts almost 70 per cent of recurring plan firms, including leaders Dollar Shave Club, Hello Fresh and Netflix. Walmart and Sephora are among longer established retailers entering the space.
UnivDatos cites younger and affluent urbanites as prime subscription targets, with women currently the largest share of end-users.
That’s expected to remain unchanged until 2025, when women will represent a $246.6bn market share, owing to increasing numbers of start-ups targeting women.
Personal care and beauty occupy the largest chunk of the worldwide subscription e-commerce market, with changing lifestyles, work schedules, customisation and convenience among the chief future drivers.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
