Al Wasl are in a race against time as they try to complete the signing of Brazilian Caio Canedo Correa before they officially kick off their Arabian Gulf League season against Al Dhafra on Monday.
Caio is the fourth Brazilian brought to the Zabeel Stadium this summer – alongside Neto Berola, Fabio Virginio de Lima and Ederson – as the Cheetahs continue to revamp their squad, which has so far seen no less than 12 new additions.
The 24-year-old forward, who was on loan at Vitoria from Internacional last season in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, arrived to Dubai on Friday but Al Wasl coach, Jorginho, says they are struggling to complete the paper work in time for the opening round with Dhafra.
“I’m very grateful to the club’s administration for all the effort they’ve put in trying to complete the deal and get Caio registered with the PLC in time,” Jorginho said. “We had some difficulties regarding the transfer, with the federation and the PLC, and a lot of things still need to happen.
"But we hope that we can have him with us for our first game, and if not, then he’ll be ready for the second game.
“The most important thing, is that we’ll have one more foreign player with us soon.”
Al Ahli’s Hugo Viana was believed to be a target for Wasl, after the Portuguese midfielder was deemed surplus to the Red Knights’ requirements.
“He (Hugo Viana) is a great player. It’s true that I had some interest in signing him but it didn’t work out because we had other opportunities to sign other players,” explained Jorginho, a World Cup winner with Brazil in 1994.
Al Wasl, seven-time UAE champions, are trying to recapture their former glory days and hope to rebound from a poor run where they couldn’t finish higher than fifth in any of the past six seasons and placed a lowly 12th, just one spot above the relegation zone, last year.
Jorginho, who took the helm at the Zabeel at the end of last season, is aware of the club’s rich history and the tough task at hand but believes Wasl are ready to have a successful campaign.
“Of course when you lose a lot, the confidence goes,” he says. “We have a very different team now than the one we had last season. We have kept players like Rashed Ali and Yasser Salem but the rest of the squad is pretty much made up of new players, with a new mentality.
“The most important thing is that right now we have a team that is very focused, very committed and very professional. I think we’ll have a very different season than the previous one.
“I was here for the last four or five matches of last season and we faced lots of difficult times then. We’ve addressed our problems and now it’s time for us to start winning and to show a different level of quality.”
