By rights, Yahya Al Ghassani should be moping around the place with the careworn look of someone who luck has conspired against.
These are final throes of a season which promised so much for club, country, and personally. And yet at every turn, an obstacle was put in his way.
The headline aim was reaching the World Cup with the UAE. They might have made it, too, were it not for his untimely injury in the opening game of their qualifier play-off against Oman in Doha in October.
As a raiding winger with boundless energy, Al Ghassani is a key figure in attack for the national team. When they thrashed Qatar 5-0 in Abu Dhabi in the previous round of qualifying, for example, he had been a force of nature.
With the chance of a first appearance on football’s biggest stage since 1990 within touching distance, but deprived of the services of Al Ghassani though injury, they subsided to Qatar in the pivotal game of the play-off in Doha.
They had a second chance, via a two-legged fixture against Iraq, but their hopes had realistically dissolved in Qatar.
“[You feel proud] to have the hopes of your nation on your back,” Al Ghassani said of the weight of expectations during the UAE’s World Cup qualifying bid.
“It is something I dreamt when I was a kid. To get an injury first half [against Oman], I don't want to say it killed me from the inside a little bit. But it broke me down.
“I knew the work I had done. I know about the hopes of the nation, and the leaders and the people who want to go to the World Cup. They only have been there once.
“So, it broke me down, to be honest.”
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Yahya Al Ghassani of Shabab Al Ahli and the UAE at a Red Bull photoshoot. All pictures courtesy of Red Bull -
Yahya Al Ghassani joined Shabab Al Ahli in 2021. -
Yahya Al Ghassani, centre, in action for Shabab Al Ahli at Rashid Stadium in Dubai. -
Yahya Al Ghassani on a visit to Austria. -
Yahya Al Ghassani working out at the APC in Thalgau, Austria. -
Yahya Al Ghassani of Shabab Al Ahli and the UAE at a Red Bull photoshoot.
As if the Asian qualifying process was not exhausting enough, the UAE have not even been granted full closure on the World Cup yet.
It has been speculated the national team – as the highest-ranked Asian side not to qualify – could be a potential replacement if Iran opted out of playing at the World Cup because of the conflict with the United States and Israel.
Al Ghassani says that clearly the players have discussed the issue, but his preference would be to know they have qualified on merit.
“Obviously we spoke about it,” he said. “There is a hope, like one per cent to 99 per cent [of playing at the World Cup].
“But to be honest, as an individual player, as an individual athlete, I would always love and be proud to qualify with my own performance, [and know] I deserve to be there.
“You never know. Maybe we deserve to be there with these kind of problems. Obviously, nobody will deny [wanting] to go to the World Cup. It's a dream for any player to play there, especially for a UAE footballer.”
The 28-year-old forward is proud of the work he put in after the heartbreak of that Doha play-off to get back fit in time to play a role for the national team in the Arab Cup.
His injury was projected to keep him out for eight to 10 weeks. He made it back in four, and featured as the UAE made the semi-final of that competition.
Still, injuries recurred, and limited his game time in club football. He made it back on to the field as a late substitute in Shabab Al Ahli’s most recent UAE Pro League game, against Khorfakkan.
But by that point the side who have set the standard in domestic football for the majority of the past two seasons had all but lost their grip on their title.
Al Ghassani had scored the goal which clinched the league for Shabab Al Ahli in 2023. Two seasons later, they did the double.
They challenged on all fronts again this season, only to be done in by a variety of factors. First, they have been bettered by an outstanding Al Ain side who are undefeated in the league this season. Al Ain will clinch the title on Wednesday if they beat Sharjah and Shabab Al Ahli fail to beat Al Nasr.
Then there was the farcical refereeing decision which denied Shabab Al Ahli a place in Asia’s biggest club fixture.
In the semi-final of the AFC Champions League Elite in Jeddah last month, they saw a stoppage time goal ruled out after a VAR consultation.
The referee inexplicably decided he had allowed a throw in to be taken before a substitution had been fully completed. Al Ghassani said the various challenges have tested him and his colleagues.
“The negative side of football is not winning anything this season,” he said. “The season was not bad. But for us, if you don't win any title, it's very bad. A team like Shahab Al Ahli enters every season with the aim to win a title as a minimum.
“But this is something that we have to learn from. Football is not only about winning. Sometimes you learn from losing also.”
Al Ghassani still hopes his own learning journey will continue at some point in Europe.
Earlier in his career, he had a trial with Paris FC. France came calling again this season, when Angers were negotiating to take him to Ligue 1.
An agreement could not ultimately be reached with Shabab Al Ahli, but Al Ghassani remains hopeful he will be able to broaden his horizons at some point.
“It's a dream,” he said of the prospects of a move to Europe. “I have been dreaming about since when I was a kid, and it is something that will not leave my mind until I achieve it.
“And, something about me; if I have something in my mind, I have to achieve it. I don't care how I'm going to achieve it, but I'm going to.”
He has watched with intrigue as Saud Abdulhamid has played a starring role for Lens in Ligue 1 this season.
The right-back, who is on loan from Roma, is blazing a trail for Gulf footballers as the first Saudi Arabian player to make it in one of Europe’s big leagues.
Al Ghassani said he is thrilled for someone whom he counts as a mate, but does not feel any sense of envy.
“I always rather not follow anyone's road,” Al Ghassani said. “Of course, he has his own. I have my own, and maybe my road is different.
“I know what he went through and I'm always happy because as a friend of mine I am happy to see him achieve what he wanted to achieve.”
Despite the travails of this campaign, Al Ghassani remains the same energising force he has always been.
It is easy to see why Red Bull would choose him as one of their select group of Gulf-based athletes.
He adored his time at the company’s training facility in Austria last summer when, he says, he met NBA stars, F1 driver Max Verstappen, and a bunch of others who do “crazy, dangerous sports, which I'll never do”.
He carries no bitterness with him over the missed chances of this season, or the aborted moves to Paris FC earlier in his career, or Angers this time around.
But he does carry the hope that one day he might do for UAE football what Abdulhamid is doing for the Saudi Arabian game.
“I told him it's not going to be easy because people are going to look at you as a Gulf-origin player, which is not easy,” Al Ghassani said, recalling the time he trialled at Paris FC.
“This is what the people there [saw when] they were looking at me, so he got it and he knew it. He was a bit frustrated and he was thinking of coming back.
“But, thank God, he has made himself strong mentally, and he was able to stay over there and, mashallah, is doing a lot of great things.”
