Cosmin Olaroiu, the Al Ain coach, expects rivals to raise their game against his table-topping team in the second half of the season.
Al Ain head the Pro League standings at the midway stage in the campaign, and the Romanian know his job is only half done as he plots to maintain his side's position in the league, starting on Monday night against Al Nasr.
The Garden City team won their home encounter 2-0 at the beginning of the season and Olaroiu is preparing for a hard game this evening at the Al Maktoum Stadium in Dubai, but said the team's tactics will remain the same.
"Every game is important for us and we will play to win, which has been our strategy from the beginning of the season," he said. "Of course we expect all teams to come hard at us because we are the top team at the moment. And we are ready for that.
"We start against Nasr and they are a very good team. They are not the same team we met in the met at the beginning of the season. They have new players and the team has shown remarkable improvement."
Olaroiu will be without several leading players tonight including has a selection dilemma with several injuries in his squad. Asamoah Gyan, the star striker who is on national duty for with the Ghana side at the African Cup of Nations and will miss the next two league games as he will not be back until after February 10.
“We knew of Gyan’s non-availability beforehand but the injuries to some of the key players are the problem areas,” Olaroiu said. “We have lost several players because of it. But the good thing is that those who have come in their places have done admirably well."
According to the coach, Waleed Salem, the goalkeeper, Yasser Al Qahtani, the Saudi Arabian forward, and Omar Abdulrahman, the influential midfielder, are back in training but have still to pass fitness tests.
“All those who have joined the training will have to pass a fitness test,” Olaroiu said. “I am not too sure if they will be available. And I am not sure if Mirel Radoi will be available for this game.”
Also on Monday night, Al Wahda will field a depleted line-up against Al Shabab at the Al Nahyan stadium.
Ismail Matar, their playmaker, serves a one-match ban for three yellow cards, while Hamdan Al Kamali, the central back, has made himself unavailable. Magrao, the Brazilian midfielder, is still recovering from a leg injury and three players – Khaled Jalal, Salem Saleh and Adel Al Hosani – are on national duty with the Olympic team.
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MATCH INFO
Alaves 1 (Perez 65' pen)
Real Madrid 2 (Ramos 52', Carvajal 69')
Islamophobia definition
A widely accepted definition was made by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims in 2019: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” It further defines it as “inciting hatred or violence against Muslims”.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
How tumultuous protests grew
- A fuel tax protest by French drivers appealed to wider anti-government sentiment
- Unlike previous French demonstrations there was no trade union or organised movement involved
- Demonstrators responded to online petitions and flooded squares to block traffic
- At its height there were almost 300,000 on the streets in support
- Named after the high visibility jackets that drivers must keep in cars
- Clashes soon turned violent as thousands fought with police at cordons
- An estimated two dozen people lost eyes and many others were admitted to hospital
Earth under attack: Cosmic impacts throughout history
- 4.5 billion years ago: Mars-sized object smashes into the newly-formed Earth, creating debris that coalesces to form the Moon
- 66 million years ago: 10km-wide asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out over 70 per cent of living species – including the dinosaurs.
- 50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater
- 1490: Meteor storm over Shansi Province, north-east China when large stones “fell like rain”, reportedly leading to thousands of deaths.
- 1908: 100-metre meteor from the Taurid Complex explodes near the Tunguska river in Siberia with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima-type bombs, devastating 2,000 square kilometres of forest.
- 1998: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks apart and crashes into Jupiter in series of impacts that would have annihilated life on Earth.
-2013: 10,000-tonne meteor burns up over the southern Urals region of Russia, releasing a pressure blast and flash that left over 1600 people injured.
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
Stormy seas
Weather warnings show that Storm Eunice is soon to make landfall. The videographer and I are scrambling to return to the other side of the Channel before it does. As we race to the port of Calais, I see miles of wire fencing topped with barbed wire all around it, a silent ‘Keep Out’ sign for those who, unlike us, aren’t lucky enough to have the right to move freely and safely across borders.
We set sail on a giant ferry whose length dwarfs the dinghies migrants use by nearly a 100 times. Despite the windy rain lashing at the portholes, we arrive safely in Dover; grateful but acutely aware of the miserable conditions the people we’ve left behind are in and of the privilege of choice.
GIANT REVIEW
Starring: Amir El-Masry, Pierce Brosnan
Director: Athale
Rating: 4/5
Key recommendations
- Fewer criminals put behind bars and more to serve sentences in the community, with short sentences scrapped and many inmates released earlier.
- Greater use of curfews and exclusion zones to deliver tougher supervision than ever on criminals.
- Explore wider powers for judges to punish offenders by blocking them from attending football matches, banning them from driving or travelling abroad through an expansion of ‘ancillary orders’.
- More Intensive Supervision Courts to tackle the root causes of crime such as alcohol and drug abuse – forcing repeat offenders to take part in tough treatment programmes or face prison.
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The Al Barzakh Festival takes place on Wednesday and Thursday at 7.30pm in the Red Theatre, NYUAD, Saadiyat Island. Tickets cost Dh105 for adults from platinumlist.net
Closing the loophole on sugary drinks
As The National reported last year, non-fizzy sugared drinks were not covered when the original tax was introduced in 2017. Sports drinks sold in supermarkets were found to contain, on average, 20 grams of sugar per 500ml bottle.
The non-fizzy drink AriZona Iced Tea contains 65 grams of sugar – about 16 teaspoons – per 680ml can. The average can costs about Dh6, which would rise to Dh9.
Drinks such as Starbucks Bottled Mocha Frappuccino contain 31g of sugar in 270ml, while Nescafe Mocha in a can contains 15.6g of sugar in a 240ml can.
Flavoured water, long-life fruit juice concentrates, pre-packaged sweetened coffee drinks fall under the ‘sweetened drink’ category
Not taxed:
Freshly squeezed fruit juices, ground coffee beans, tea leaves and pre-prepared flavoured milkshakes do not come under the ‘sweetened drink’ band.
MATCH DETAILS
Manchester United 3
Greenwood (21), Martial (33), Rashford (49)
Partizan Belgrade 0
