Life runs at a different speed on the heaving, intoxicating streets of Bangkok. This bustling southeast-Asian city, which represents the latest stop on the UAE’s testing path to World Cup 2018, boasts a cornucopia of sights and sounds, as climate-controlled megamalls in sophisticated Sukhumvit contrast wildly with the otherworldly neon-lit streets of the infamous Khao San Road.
Time flashes by on slender thoroughfares packed with cars, tuk-tuks and distractions. This ephemeral sense of moments racing by is surely now familiar to new coach Edgardo Bauza, who couldn’t be blamed for feeling his first fortnight spent with a squad full of unfamiliar faces has been all too brief ahead of Tuesday’s critical World Cup 2018 qualifier against Thailand.
But it is into this maelstrom that the man – sacked by his native Argentina in April after just eight unsatisfying matches – has been thrust into.
There is no luxury of a bedding in period for someone whose Middle Eastern experience stretches to five months at Saudi Arabia’s Al Nassr in 2009, no opportunity to make amends at a later date if his opening steps are out of sync.
The tactician who was unable to craft a tune out of Barcelona’s Lionel Messi, Paris Saint-Germain’s Angel Di Maria and Napoli’s Gonzalo Higuain, must now prove he can secure the White’s second-ever entry to the World Cup with the foreign talents of Al Jazira marksman Ali Mabkhout, Al Ahli’s Ahmed Khalil and versatile Al Nasr tyro Tariq Ahmed.
#UAE boss @Patonweb is building from the back as he prepares for next week's #WCQ2018 bow in #Thailand
— Sport360° (@Sport360) June 10, 2017
🇹🇭🇦🇪🇦🇷https://t.co/aaeJDTMYKX pic.twitter.com/WXkptzj1om
The stakes could not be higher for the current UAE Football Association hierarchy. If the candidate chosen after an unnecessarily sinuous route to a successor for Mahdi Ali gets off to a false start, then the ‘Golden Generation’ they inherited last year will never get to play a World Cup at their peak.
A loss will mathematically end all third-and-final round hopes, with a draw of little use. Successfully navigating the Road to Russia, apparently, represented the predestined apogee of a group of players who stormed to 2008’s AFC U-19 Championship, ran-out at the London 2012 Olympics, lifted the 2013 Gulf Cup and finished an incredible third at the 2015 Asian Cup.
Nothing less than three points now are required from Bauza’s competitive debut. Fail to do so and there will be no trip to Russia next summer, while the pressure should ramp up to excel on home soil, no matter how far away the 2019 Asian Cup feels right now.
But this is just one of the tests he must pass. An inability to do so at the ageing Rajamangala National Stadium, of which the uneven pitch hardly appears conducive to the exemplary playmaking skills of Omar Abdulrahman, cannot be countenanced and no excuse accepted.
The early signs appear promising. A warm-up against Laos last Wednesday finished in an impressive 4-0 thrashing. With the outmoded 4-4-2 formation of Ali consigned to the past, detailed work on the ubiquitous 4-2-3-1 utilised throughout the Arabian Gulf League – and favoured by Bauza during his career – has been undertaken.
MATCHDAY!! Thailand Mens' National Team vs. UAE - 7PM Rajamangala Stadium - FIFA 2018 Qualifications #MTUTD pic.twitter.com/6KYWe3n9OT
— Muangthong United FC (@MuangthongUtd) June 13, 2017
Although against opposition ranked just 172 in the world by FIFA, a clean sheet was kept and the scoring instincts of two-goal Mabkhout and Khalil remained in evidence.
Bauza has been hands-on and engaging on training pitches in Dubai, Malaysia and Bangkok in the last two weeks. Not even the sticky, mosquito-ridden conditions of King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology in the last few days could bridle the enthusiasm and dedication of the 59-year-old.
With an Arabic/ Spanish translator by his side and whistle regularly put to his mouth, his new charges were willing pupils as they got to hear a new master’s voice after a decade spent under Ali’s vigil for various youth and senior sides.
Where timing has definitely been on Bauza’s favour is in meeting Thailand – nicknamed the War Elephants – at this juncture. Vice-captain and 40-goal striker Teerasil Dangda’s forced pull-out through injury yesterday saw him become the fifth certain starter consigned to the stands for Serbian Milovan Rajevac unpropitious competitive bow.
The hosts also sit bottom of Group B, with just one point gained from seven deflating matches. Bauza must prevail this evening in a steamy Bangkok. If he does not, the repercussions will stain what should have been UAE football’s glory years.
