Inside story: Father figure Mahdi Ali fuelling UAE’s success

Martyn Thomas 08:28 10/11/2014
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  • Young stars on the rise: Striker Ali Mabkhout (l) has excelled for years under Ali.

    When the UAE take to the field to open their Gulf Cup of Nations defence against Oman in Riyadh on Friday, they will do so with com­plete confidence.

    The Whites are in Saudi Arabia to do a job and there is a belief within the squad that they will win the game, and go on to lift the trophy again.

    If that seems like arrogance, then it is fairly well placed.

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    Despite a recent wobble, this is a squad that is used to winning foot­ball matches and expects to reach the latter stages of every tourna­ment in which they compete.

    “The players and coach have proven how good they are in every tournament,” UAE Football Asso­ciation (UAE FA) president Yousuf Al Serkal said yesterday.

    “This system gave us the gift of the Gulf Cup.”

    Indeed, that innate belief has been built up over time with the bulk of the squad Mahdi Ali has assembled for duty in Saudi Arabia having worked with him since their early teens.

    In that time Ali has helped to cultivate a culture built on success. The Emirati oversaw Asian Cup glory at Under-19 level before tak­ing the same group of players to the quarter-finals of the U-20 World Cup a year later, and ultimately the 2012 Olympic Games.

    Remarkably just five months after their appearance in London the UAE were crowned Gulf Cup winners for the second time, with a host of young stars to the fore.

    That the Whites begin their quest in Saudi as favourites to triumph once more highlights how far they have come under their baseball cap-wearing coach. It is easy to forget that just three years ago the senior national team were something of an embarrassment.

    Under the guidance of Slovenian coach Srecko Katanec the Whites crashed out of the 2011 Asian Cup at the group stage having failed to register a single goal – although Walid Abbas did manage to find his own net.

    The calamity in Qatar was fol­lowed shortly by a catastrophic qualification campaign for the 2014 World Cup that cost Katanec his job and led to a disconnect with the country’s football fans.

    However there was a certain method to the apparent madness. In his role as UAE FA president, Mohammed Khalfan Al Rumaithi recognised the benefit that reach­ing the Olympics for the first time could have.

    Suddenly, the under-23s were prioritised over the senior side and when fixtures clashed it was Ali and not Katanec that had first pick of players.

    This meant that the nucleus of the squad – Amer and Omar Abdulrahman, Ahmed Khalil and Hamdan Al Kamali – were kept together and the team duly made it to London.

    They had a certain degree of good fortune on their way, but qualification was sealed in impres­sive style with a home win over Australia and away victory in Uz­bekistan. According to one senior figure at the UAEFA it was the 1-0 win over the Olyroos at the Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium that sparked a fire within the squad.

    As the team bus approached the ground in Abu Dhabi it was forced to slow to a crawl as it navigated a sea of cars abandoned rather than parked in the surrounding streets as fans flocked to the game. This was not something the players were used to but it made them sit up and take note; they realised they had “woken up a country” in the words of the official.

    But while the young Whites were plotting their journey to Europe, the senior side were in turmoil. Dr Abdullah Misfer had replaced Katanec on a temporary basis, and results did improve.

    Lebanon were beaten 4-2 in Abu Dhabi, but while 8,000 people attended the game at Al Wahda’s Al Nahyan Stadium, they were almost exclusively there to cheer on the visitors, whose World Cup hopes were still alive.

    Misfer was keen on staying, but Ali and his staff had long been plan­ning for the top job and despite some prevarication from the UAE FA, he was eventually given it.

    It is a decision that has been proved to be the correct one. Since an encouraging 1-0 defeat to Asian heavyweights Japan in his opening game, the UAE have lost just two more internationals in 28. That run saw the Whites climb to as high as 58 in the FIFA world rankings (in February 2014), from a low of 138 in the gloomy days of early 2012.

    Much of Ali’s success has been built on his relationship with his players. He knows them inside out and they know him, and there is a trust between them.

    Whenever players who have worked with him talk about the Emirati tactician, they invariably refer to him as a father figure.

    Ali has moulded many of these youngsters into the players they are today, and his authori­tative yet understated approach has yielded results.

    Extremely loyal to those around him, the former Al Ahli player expects his charges to work hard for him and accepts nothing less than 100 per cent effort.

    In return his players are given a clear framework for success, they are comfortable with his methods and know from experience that if they adhere to them they will achieve their goals.

    In turn he knows exactly what he can expect from the players, and the atmosphere within the squad is more akin to that of a club side rather than international team.

    Mahdi has also been fortunate to be able to work with such a talented crop of players, but his approach is built on a system that ensures that there is no-one who cannot be replaced.

    He has also shown himself to be adept at mixing his age-group graduates with more experienced players. Ismail Matar and Ali Khaseif were both taken to the Olympics as overage players, and their inclusion helped the transi­tion from young pretenders to Gulf Cup champions.

    “We did not expect to run away with the cup in the last event,” Al Serkal added. “Mahdi Ali has pre­pared his strategy for the team for a long time. That is why we did well in Bahrain.”

    The dedication that has seen the Whites climb up the world rank­ings can be summed up by a story from the early days of Mahdi’s coaching journey.

    Having stepped up from his role as assistant with the Under-16s, an early assignment saw him take his young charges to a tournament in Bahrain. However, juggling his new responsibilities with his job at the Dubai Road Traffic Authority resulted in him flying to and from Dubai on a daily basis.

    By morning he was an electri­cal engineer and in the afternoon he was an international football coach.

    It is not hard to see why his play­ers would be inspired.

    That is the kind of work ethic that Mahdi has instilled in his teams, and it will be vital over the next two weeks if the UAE are to retain their regional crown.

    No-one inside the camp has allowed their thoughts to drift fur­ther than the job at hand in Saudi, but should they achieve their mission, then expectations will rise again for January’s Asian Cup. 

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