AGL season yet to start but Al Ain are at the starting gate already

The Arabian Gulf League's kick off is four weeks away, but for one UAE club the season starts tonight.

Al Ain take on Al Ittihad of Saudi Arabia at Hazza bin Zayed Stadium in the first leg of their Asian Champions League quarter-final, with the return leg next Tuesday at King Fahd Stadium in Riyadh.

The next seven days could turn out to be some of the most important in Al Ain’s history.

Having beaten another Emirati team, Al Jazira, in the round of 16, Al Ain have serious designs on the trophy they won in 2003 under Bruno Metsu.

But the early start against Al Ittihad brings with it a new challenge and significant implications for UAE football.

No Emirati team has made this stage of the competition since Al Wahda in 2007. Al Ain last contested a quarter-final a year earlier.

This has the potential to be a glorious start to the season even before a ball has been kicked ­domestically.

Progress will be a massive boost for a team hoping to regain their place at the top of Emirati football after a dismal 2013/14 in which they finished sixth in the AGL table, 21 points behind the champions and bitter rivals Al Ahli.

Zlatko Dalic, the Al Ain manager, will rightly feel that since taking over from Quique Sánchez Flores with three months of the season left, the team’s fortunes have improved dramatically.

In addition to the steady progress in the Champions League, the President’s Cup was won against Al Ahli at Zayed Sports City Stadium in May.

That momentum is in danger of being lost should Al Ain fail to beat Ittihad. A win, though, would have things looking rosy – and not just for Dalic and Al Ain.

Success for Al Ain in the continent’s premier club competition would reflect positively on the recently rebranded domestic league – a competition that has not always been taken seriously outside the UAE.

Over the past two years, things have started to change as clubs have learnt their lessons.

It may not be anywhere near the standard of the top European leagues, and even a few Asian ones, but the AGL can no longer be mocked as a retirement home for big-name foreign signings at the tail end of their ­careers.

One player has done more than anyone else to change attitudes.

When Asamoah Gyan left the high life of the English Premier League to join Al Ain three years ago, he was derided as a player with a lack of ambition.

Yet his move has been an unqualified success for player and club, and he showed at the recent World Cup in Brazil that, far from losing his edge, he remains a formidable player at international level.

Gyan, who has just signed a contract extension at Al Ain, has maintained that the Asian Champions League is one of the main reasons he remains at the club.

He has already scored 10 goals in this year’s competition, with three coming in the two games against Al Jazira.

There is every indication he can keep that impressive run going and lead Al Ain all the way to the two-legged final on October 25 and November 1.

Should Al Ain win the trophy for the second time in their history, expect the AGL to reap the benefits.

Nothing boosts a domestic league more than the success of its clubs in continental competitions.

In the past 15 years, the English clubs has provided four Uefa Champions League winners, four finalists and several other semi-finalists. Its reputation, despite the continuing failures of the England national team, has never been higher and it continues to be the top destination in the world for players.

As it happens, the UAE national team is doing its part for the AGL, thanks to a renaissance of its own over the past two years.

Success at the Gulf Cup of Nations, not to mention the 2015 Asian Cup in Australia, coupled with progress for Al Ain next week could herald the AGL’s most prosperous era.

The pressure is on Dalic and his troops to deliver Tuesday night.

akhaled@thenational.ae

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