The UAE midfielder gives John McAuley his thoughts on last season, Al Ahli’s hunt for a striker, and their fine end-of-season form that resulted in a passage to the Asian Champions League quarter-finals.
On the importance of Al Ahli recruiting a top-class striker:
“Until now, Ribeiro and Kwon are going to stay, that’s what I heard. Still we need to bring two foreign players. I’m sure they will bring the good players who will help us do something good in the championship.”
On Al Ahli’s struggles to replace Grafite:
“I didn’t play with him a lot but he was more like a brother for all the players. He was such a great player, he gave the team great confidence when he was playing. It’s hard to find somebody like Grafite, but we may get somebody who helps the team a lot and who might do something well for the team.
“Each player has his impact on the team. We can’t say only the striker affects the position of the team because we are 11 players and always the team doesn’t depend on one player. But we lost a great attacker in Grafite and we hope that the next foreign player will be as a good as him.”
On Cosmin Olaroiu staying at Al Ahli:
“It’s important because at the end of the season many clubs wanted to sign Cosmin and this created some confusion in the team, because everybody wants Cosmin to stay. But now after he signed until 2018 there will be a great feeling for all the players because he’s a great coach.”
On Al Ahli’s Champions League opponents Naft Tehran:
“We will not find any easy game in this round of the ACL, but I think we have a great opportunity to reach the semi-final. Naft Tehran are a great team, we know that, but we have a great opportunity to pass them and reach the semi-final.”
“I watched the games (against Al Ain in the group stage). They are a good team, organised, and have good players. Of course, the game will be hard but we have a great opportunity and we should take it this time. We’ve reached a good round in the ACL and if we reach the semi-finals then it will be great for Al Ahli because it was the first time we qualified in our history.”
On Al Ahli’s end-of-season form:
“Most of the players get great confidence after they reached this stage of the ACL. This is a great push for this season to train hard to reach something more, because if you play only in the league and the UAE cups, you always play against the same teams.
“In the ACL it’s different — you play against teams from different countries and get great experiences from these games. It’s a great opportunity and we’ve got some much confidence.”
Habib Fardan was speaking at a preview of the Adidas Football Bunker at Dubai Sports World.
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @NatSportUAE
