You would be forgiven for thinking it was the end of the world for the UAE team.
Iran's last-minute winner, the wild Iranian celebration at Brisbane's Suncorp Stadium and, above all, the grim looks on the faces of Mahdi Ali and his men as they emerged from the dressing room.
Yet the UAE are still alive and kicking, qualification to the last eight having been achieved by beating Qatar and Bahrain.
Photo gallery: The UAE’s narrow Asian Cup Group C defeat to Iran
Failure to finish top of Group C does complicate things for the UAE, who must head to Sydney on the more arduous route to the final, rather than return to Canberra where they won those two group matches.
There is a danger they will wallow too much in this last-minute 1-0 defeat and overplay the challenge of facing Japan in the quarter-final to the point where the match is lost before it has kicked off.
For a start, Japan have yet to win their group; a win today for Jordan against the current champions will see Ray Wilkins’s men top Group D.
Assuming things go as expected, though, and Japan confirm their leadership of Group D, the UAE must not be cowed by the possibility of facing the favourites.
In fairness to Mahdi Ali, he must have gone blue in the face over the past week reiterating that. Last night, he again answered the Japan question with a sense of exasperation.
“I’ve answered this question three times already and I repeat, we always play to win,” he said. “We were not thinking of avoiding Japan, I wanted to be top because it gives the team a huge mental lift and motivation for the next match. I thought the boys gave a big performance today that did not deserve this outcome.”
Once the dust settles, that should be a source of optimism for the UAE. Before the tournament started, few expected anything other than maximum points for Iran in this group. Yet Mahdi Ali’s men outplayed them with performances of skill, intelligence, tactical astuteness and bravery.
Despite his obvious disappointment, the coach was already looking ahead.
“We have to forget the referee and this match, we lost the match but are still in the competition,” he said. “Even if we had won this, we could have lost the next match and it’ll be the same thing. We are still here, we need to focus on the next match, we played well.”
If they could play that well here, then Japan should hold no fears.
Against Iran, every player played his part for the team; from Majed Naser in goal, Mohanad Salem and Mohammed Ahmed at the heart of defence, the controlling presence of Amer Abdulrahman and Khamis Ismail in midfield and the relentless running of Ali Mabkhout and Ahmed Khalil up front.
There also was the brilliant, peerless Omar Abdulrahman.
Many eyes before the match were on the “Iranian Messi” Sardar Azmoun and his 72nd-minute replacement Reza Ghoochannejhad may have nabbed the AFC’s official man of the match award, but there was little doubt who the real star was.
With Abdulrahman in this sort of form anything is possible.
“We played a great match, but it wasn’t God’s will for us to win,” said Abdulrahman. “We had some chances but couldn’t score. Hopefully we can learn from our mistakes and use that to win the next match.”
“This defeat will not affect us,” he said. “Win or lose, we are used to staying strong. We promise you better in the next match.”
akhaled@thenational.ae
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