Omar Abdulrahman of the UAE national football team is on the cover of The National's Sport section for Friday, October 7.
Abdulrahman and the Emiratis collected another three points toward their question of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup on Thursday night, beating Thailand at the Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi.
The result leaves the UAE in third, just one point behind Australia and Saudi Arabia at the top of the group. The top two come the end of the 10-match group round advance automatically to Russia 2018. Third place continues onto another play-off route.
So far, the UAE can feel confident knowing they are right in the mix.
Writes John McAuley of the affair:
“It was tense and it was tight, but the UAE eventually saw off Thailand to secure three precious points on the road to Russia.]
“They now sit on a rather encouraging six points from a possible nine, well placed heading into Tuesday’s titanic tussle against Saudi Arabia in Jeddah. Thailand dispatched, that now represents priority No 1.
“It was far from perfect, but their Thailand target has been accomplished.”
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