DUBAI // The group of players commonly touted as the UAE's golden generation barely feel like adults, yet.
Certainly, they have plenty of time to make good on the substantial hopes the country has invested in their footballing talents.
As such, it must stick in the craw of the close-knit group of national team representatives when one of their younger brothers achieves the sort of feat they probably had designs on themselves.
Hamid Al Kamali's cameo for Valletta, a Maltese club, in their 4-0 defeat to FC Qarabag of Azerbaijan in July hardly brought great fame on an international scale. But it did make him the first Emirati to play in Europe's Uefa Champions League.
It is where most leading players aspire to be, let alone those Emiratis whose collective efforts have vaulted the UAE up the world rankings in recent years.
According to Khamis Esmail, the athletic Al Jazira and national team midfielder, the opportunity to prove themselves in one of Europe's elite leagues is something they all crave.
"Al Jazira is a big team, but no doubt it is my ambition [to play in Europe] – that is the ambition of all of us," Esmail, 25, said yesterday.
"I want to work on my skills and develop myself further, as my aim is to become a professional player somewhere abroad. I want to sample the world of professionalism."
Old habits die hard. The idea that you have to go abroad to become a professional seems outdated now, or at least a slip of the tongue from a player who has played all his senior football since the Arabian Gulf League officially went pro back in 2008.
There is no shortage of imported knowledge here. Esmail will rub shoulders with Mirko Vucinic, fresh off the plane from Juventus in Italy's Serie A, and Manuel Lanzini, 21, an Argentine forward, at Jazira this season.
But the likes of Esmail, Ahmed Khalil and the two Abdulrahmans, Omar and Amer, have been bitten by wanderlust.
"Each footballer has a wish to play for one of the big teams in Europe," Omar said recently.
The fact Hamdan Al Kamali, the older brother of Hamid, has seen his playing career stall since a loan stint at French club Lyon two years ago has not put any of his contemporaries off the idea of trying their hand in Europe.
Hamdan is out of the UAE squad who have been preparing for the defence of the Gulf Cup title, as well as the trip to Australia for the Asian Cup next year.
"It is a question I don't have an answer to – I don't know why any of our players have not played abroad yet," Esmail said.
"I have spoken to Hamdan about it briefly, and he found the experience very useful. He was satisfied with how it went. Everyone wants to have that experience."
pradley@thenational.ae
Khamis Esmail among the UAE stars dreaming of European football
The Al Jazira midfielder keen to try his hand away from the AGL at some point in his career.
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