Two seasons that were processions to the UAE football championship for the winners looked to be the start of another period of unrelenting dominance.
After a surprisingly sterile spell between 2004 and 2011, Al Ain steamrollered to league championships in 2011/12 and 2012/13.
The first in eight years was clinched with three rounds to spare; the gap between runaways and runners-up a cavernous 14 points.
Twelve months later, the title was captured four rounds before the league’s conclusion. This time the difference was 11 points.
So Al Ain were expected last season to make it a hat-trick. The division’s finest tactician – Cosmin Olaroiu – guided the country’s finest technicians.
But then Olaroiu departed early in the summer and, with him, so did Al Ain's hopes of a third successive championship.
Al Ain were in a bind, and panic led to the wrong pick.
Jorge Fossati, the experienced Uruguayan, simply did not fit and he was dumped on the eve of the 2013/14 campaign.
As the club board stalled, the team stuttered. By the time Quique Sanchez Flores was appointed, finally, in September, he inherited an undercooked squad with an oversized crisis of confidence.
Al Ain spent the remainder of the season in the belly of the table, flitting between eighth and fifth. Clearly, they had lost their appetite.
Somewhere between the cracks, though, the Garden City side began to bloom again.
Zlatko Dalic, a little-known Croatian with a modest CV, was drafted in first as technical supervisor, then as Sanchez Flores’s successor.
What seemed an ill-advised move transpired to be inspired: under Dalic, Al Ain won five of seven league matches, lifted the President's Cup and advanced further in the Asian Champions League than they had in nine years.
They are four matches away from being crowned the continent's best. They seek to be their country's principal side, too.
The tame capitulation last term will have hurt, and Al Ain go into the 2014/15 Arabian Gulf League with added determination. Shrewd signings – Miroslav Stoch, Lee Myung-joo, Rashid Essa and Mohammed Fawzi – have injected energy and experience, pace and poise. Al Ain are back.
FOREIGN PLAYERS
Asamoah Gyan
Three Golden Boot awards show his importance. The Ghanaian has topped the goalscoring charts for the past three seasons, reaching 100 goals in all competitions last term. His predatory instincts keep getting better and the winning goals in the President’s Cup final and the Asian Champions League knockout stages illustrate his fine sense of timing.
Miroslav Stoch
A pint-size winger of sizeable potential, he joined the club earlier this summer from Turkish club Fenerbahce. The Czech is strong, swift and skilful, and he will supply an outlet for Al Ain when opposition teams focus on the side’s other attackers. Stoch creates chances for teammates and should chip in with a healthy goal tally, too.
Lee Myung-joo
Signed this summer from Pohang Steelers, the South Korean brings needed energy to Al Ain’s one-paced midfield. He has impressed with his two appearances thus far – against Al Ittihad in the Asian Champions League – with his tenacity and work rate. Likes to keep play simple, so should dovetail nicely with the more elaborate Omar Abdulrahman.
Jires Kembo Ekoko
Having forged a strong partnership with Asamoah Gyan in 2012/13, the Frenchman was surprisingly allowed to go on loan the following season. Yet, after a year in Qatar, Kembo Ekoko is back and will be keen to pick up where he left off. A powerful forward who can be deployed on the wing, he should be among the goals again.
jmcauley@thenational.ae
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