UAE FA chief Nuaimi meets new coach Van Marwijk, urges fans to support team

Mohammad Abdullah, Staff Reporter

UAE FA President Sheikh Rashid Bin Humaid Al Nuaimi met the newly-appointed coach Bert Van Marwijk at the federation’s headquarters on Thursday.

Van Marwijk is returning as the UAE coach for his second spell with the team after parting ways almost a year ago.

Van Marwijk will lead the UAE in the remaining matches of the joint qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup and 2023 Asian Cup.

Sheikh Nuaimi spoke to Van Marwijk about the next stages, which requires double the efforts from members of the administrative and technical staff as well as the players, who will be chosen to represent the national team, calling on everyone to stand behind the national team and support it to reach the desired goals.

“Today I met Van Marwijk, the coach of our national team, and we discussed about the plans for the next stages of the joint qualifiers, which needs double the efforts from everyone involved to realise our long-held  dreams.

“And we urge everyone to stand behind the team and support it to reach those goals,” the UAE FA chief said in a statement posted across their social media accounts. Van Marwijk was named as the new coach on Tuesday but he officially signed the contract on Thursday after arriving in the country late night on the previous day.

The meeting was attended by Yousef Hussain Al Sahlawi, second Vice-President of the Federation, Chairman of the Teams and Technical Affairs Committee, and Mohammed Abdullah Hazzam Al Dhaheri, Secretary General of the UAE FA.

The coach officially signed the contract to assume leadership of The Whites on Thursday in the presence of Mohammed Abdullah Dhaheri.

After inking the deal, the coach straightaway dashed to the Zabeel Stadium to watch the AGL match being played between Al Wasl and Al Jazira.

He will also attend the Al Nasr-Al Ain match at Al Maktoum Stadium on Friday with his technical staff to assess the performances of the players.

The UAE need to win all their remaining four matches of the joint qualifiers to keep their hopes alive. And Van Marwijk faces an uphill task of taking them through to the World Cup finals.

The joint-qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup finals and the 2023 AFC Asian Cup finals will start from March next year.

The Whites will face Malaysia on March 25 on the home turf and take on Indonesian in their capital Jakarta five days later on March 30.

So the first two of the remaining four matches are not likely to be a major challenge for the UAE as they had registered comprehensive victories against Malaysia 2-1 and versus Indonesia 5-0 in the opening matches of the qualifiers earlier.

But the real challenge will be against Thailand and Vietnam. The UAE had gone down fighting to these countries in their previous round matches of the qualifiers.

The UAE will face host Thailand and Vietnam teams on June 7 and June 15, 2021. They can bank on their home advantage against the tourist.

Van Marwijk, who left a little over a year ago, is returning as the successor of Jorge Luis Pinto. Van Marwijk was with the UAE team for nine months during his first stint. He is a renowned coach, who guided The Netherlands to the FIFA World Cup final in 2010 and also helped Saudi Arabia in their qualification for the 2018 World Cup, held in Russia. He also coached Australia at the 2018 World Cup.

During his first spell as the UAE coach Van Marwijk had mixed fortunes with the team. He was appointed in March and departed in December in 2019 following their defeat against Qatar at the Gulf Cup, not even completing a year.

He had taken over from Italian Alberto Zaccheroni, who also left after the Whites went down against Qatar in the semifinals of the 2019 Asian Cup earlier. Zaccheroni was in charge for 15 months. But his new ideas and rotation policy had hurt the team badly. Van Marwijk had started his rein on a very promising note, guiding the White to victories in the friendlies. The Whites defeated Dominican Republic (4-0) and Sri Lanka (5-1).

They had to face successive defeats at the hands of Thailand and Vietnam going down against their South Asians rivals 2-1 and 1-0 respectively, which seriously dented their World Cup dreams.