The UAE sacked head coach Paulo Bento on Wednesday, the morning after the national team kept their hopes of direct qualification to the 2026 World Cup alive with a last-gasp win over North Korea in Riyadh.
Sultan Adil scored deep into stoppage time to secure a 2-1 victory that cut the gap to second-placed Uzbekistan in Group A to four points.
The top two from each of three Asian groups qualify automatically for the 2026 finals, but Bento will now not be around to oversee the remainder of the campaign. Teams who finish in third or fourth will go into a complex extra round of qualifying.
“The UAE Football Association has decided to dismiss the head coach of the national team, Portuguese Paulo Bento, along with his coaching staff,” the UAE FA said in a message on social media on Wednesday.
Bento led the team to 14 wins, six draws and six losses in his 20 months in charge. The 55-year-old arrived in July 2023 with a solid pedigree in international football when he succeeded Rodolfo Arruabarrena in the UAE hot seat.
He had been without a job since stepping down as South Korea’s head coach the previous December following their elimination by Brazil from the 2022 World Cup at the last-16 stage. It represented South Korea’s first appearance in the tournament’s knockout stages in 12 years.
Bento had been in charge of the Koreans since August 2018, guiding his team to success in the 2019 East Asian Football Federation E-1 Championship, and then through qualification for a 10th successive World Cup appearance.
Bento, who began his managerial career in 2005 with Sporting Lisbon before being appointed Portugal national team manager five years later, replaced Arruabarrena, whose contract through to the 2023 Asian Cup was not extended after the tournament was postponed.
Instead, it was Bento who led the team at the tournament, and a penalty shoot-out exit to unfancied Tajikistan in the last 16 raised questions about his future just six months into the job.
He survived, with 2026 World Cup qualification being the ultimate aim for the UAE FA.
But, after this week's results, the chances of automatic entry into the competition have dwindled, with officials deciding a new man will have a better chance of navigating through the difficult final stages of the qualification process.
The team suffered early setbacks under Bento for which they are still suffering now.
There were memorable wins over Qatar – home and away – but defeat in Uzbekistan and a drab home draw with North Korea left them playing catch-up, and now looking increasingly likely to be headed for the perilous path through a fourth round of AFC qualifying.
