DUBAI // Ivan Jovanovic is confident he can turn around Al Nasr’s woeful form in the Arabian Gulf League before the season concludes next month.
The Dubai club are in the middle of a poor sequence of results in the UAE top flight, with Saturday’s 2-1 home defeat to Al Ain extending the skid to two victories in their past 11 matches. In that stretch, dating back to mid-December, Nasr have taken 11 points from a possible 33 to slip to sixth in the standings.
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During that time, though, Nasr have lifted the Arabian Gulf Cup — their first domestic trophy in almost 26 years — while last week they defeated Kuwait’s Karza to finish top of their group in the Gulf Clubs Championship and thus progress to the knockout stages. Nasr are the competition’s defending champions.
With league performances obviously a concern, however, Jovanovic insists he has the backing of his players as the club seeks to end the campaign in positive fashion.
On Thursday, Nasr travel to champions Al Ahli.
“As a coach, you always try to find some solutions to try to help the team,” he said. “In two years now at this club, these players have given a lot to me as a coach and to the Al Nasr fans.
“Of course, we are disappointed by the last results in the league, but I’m together with my players and we alone in the dressing room are going to find a solution for the remaining games until the end of the season.”
jmcauley@thenational.ae
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Email sent to Uber team from chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi
From: Dara
To: Team@
Date: March 25, 2019 at 11:45pm PT
Subj: Accelerating in the Middle East
Five years ago, Uber launched in the Middle East. It was the start of an incredible journey, with millions of riders and drivers finding new ways to move and work in a dynamic region that’s become so important to Uber. Now Pakistan is one of our fastest-growing markets in the world, women are driving with Uber across Saudi Arabia, and we chose Cairo to launch our first Uber Bus product late last year.
Today we are taking the next step in this journey—well, it’s more like a leap, and a big one: in a few minutes, we’ll announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Careem. Importantly, we intend to operate Careem independently, under the leadership of co-founder and current CEO Mudassir Sheikha. I’ve gotten to know both co-founders, Mudassir and Magnus Olsson, and what they have built is truly extraordinary. They are first-class entrepreneurs who share our platform vision and, like us, have launched a wide range of products—from digital payments to food delivery—to serve consumers.
I expect many of you will ask how we arrived at this structure, meaning allowing Careem to maintain an independent brand and operate separately. After careful consideration, we decided that this framework has the advantage of letting us build new products and try new ideas across not one, but two, strong brands, with strong operators within each. Over time, by integrating parts of our networks, we can operate more efficiently, achieve even lower wait times, expand new products like high-capacity vehicles and payments, and quicken the already remarkable pace of innovation in the region.
This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval in various countries, which we don’t expect before Q1 2020. Until then, nothing changes. And since both companies will continue to largely operate separately after the acquisition, very little will change in either teams’ day-to-day operations post-close. Today’s news is a testament to the incredible business our team has worked so hard to build.
It’s a great day for the Middle East, for the region’s thriving tech sector, for Careem, and for Uber.
Uber on,
Dara
