Cosmin Olaroiu is urging his UAE players to have one final push in the “last battle” as they bid to achieve World Cup qualification.
The national team are one game away from their first appearance at a World Cup since 1990. If they avoid defeat against Qatar at Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium in Doha on Tuesday night, a place in the finals will be theirs.
The fact a draw will be enough is one factor to the benefit of the UAE. Everything else, though, has been loaded in the favour of Qatar.
The game is the final match of a three-team play-off. While Qatar have had six days to rest, recuperate and plan since their goalless draw with Oman on the opening day, the turnaround has been strikingly brief for the UAE.
The 8pm kick off Doha time will be a mere 69 hours and 45 minutes after the final whistle blew on their tense, 2-1 comeback win against Oman.
The energy reserves of the UAE players will also be lacking the natural boost provided by their supporters. While 5,000 roared them on to that win against Oman on Saturday night, only around a thousand will be admitted entry to the decisive match.
Having already handed Qatar staging rights for the play-off, Fifa and the AFC also decided they would be able to treat it as a home fixture, rather than a neutral one. As such, the away allocation of tickets has been capped at eight per cent.
Thousands of Emirati supporters have remained in Doha after the first match. The UAE Football Association have made provisions for ticketless fans to watch the game together in two hotels in Doha.
“It’s a pity that a lot of fans cannot attend the game,” Olaroiu said. “Eight per cent is a very low number. It should be equal because it's a qualification game, not going away.
“They give us a good energy like they did in the last game, but we are prepared, and we survive also in this situation.
“We have to be able to pass any moment, any difficulty, any pressure from the supporters, referee. We are focused only on the way that we play and the target that we have.”
Rival sets of supporters were planning to congregate at the same spot as each other on Monday evening, in Souk Waqif.
That was where the UAE fans had descended in huge numbers on Friday, creating scenes of celebrations which the players said had inspired them ahead of the Oman game the following night.
“We know that the number of fans present at the ground is very little, but the support we have is very encouraging,” Ali Saleh, the UAE winger, said.
“We saw the support in the last game, and we know that they follow us, they watch us back home, so we hope to be able to put in a good level of performance to make them happy.”
Olaroiu has tried his best to avoid commenting on the perceived advantages that Qatar have had at the play-off, as he does not want to distract his players, or make excuses.
On the issue of the short turnaround from the Oman game, he suggested willpower will drive the players to perform.
“When you play this kind of game, you find the energy everywhere,” Olaroiu said.
“The players have the will to play. They want to play, so they will find the reserves to recover, and to play with full energy tomorrow. I'm sure about this.
“They will try their best, I'm sure. They believe, always, and I expect tomorrow they will do again. Of course, it's a very short period and it's very difficult, but we have to face it, and we cannot complain about this.”
The opposing managers tasked with guiding their sides over the line of World Cup qualification are both recent appointments.
Olariou was announced as Paulo Bento’s replacement as UAE coach in May. He stayed on at Sharjah to guide them to AFC Champions League glory in Singapore at the end of the club season, before taking the reins of the national team.
At the start of that month, Julen Lopetegui was installed as the new Qatar coach.
As such, neither played a role in the two games in which the sides met in the previous round of Asian qualifying.
Those matches were both won by the UAE. Saleh was on the scoresheet as the national team claimed a 3-1 comeback win in Doha, while the UAE later thrashed the two-time Asian Cup champions 5-0 in Abu Dhabi.
Lopetegui, the former Spain and Real Madrid manager, said those matches will count for nothing with direct qualification on the line.
“Those matches are history that had already been written, but tomorrow’s story has not been written yet,” Lopetegui said.
“We need to trust ourselves, believe in our team and our strength, and hopefully we will be able to achieve our big dream.”
Assim Madibo, the Qatar midfielder, acknowledge that Gulf derbies between the two big rivals are always intense.
“It is true: our games against the UAE are always difficult,” Madibo said. “The teams are on a par so we as players understand the value but also the difficulty of this game.
“We are fully ready to play against the UAE national team with all our strength and all our confidence and our trust in one another.”
