Today is the seventh part in our summer series celebrating sporting milestones in the UAE. In this edition, Gary Meenaghan looks back on when the world's top youth footballers gathered in the Emirates in 2003. To catch up on all our stories in this series, click here.
When Fernandinho joined Manchester City from Shakhtar Donetsk in June 2013 for £32.5 million (Dh185m), the English club’s Emirati owners will have been well aware of the Brazilian’s talents: They witnessed his prowess up close and personal a decade earlier.
On December 19, 2003 in the final of the Fifa World Youth Championships in Abu Dhabi, an 18-year-old Fernandinho fired home a bullet header in the 87th minute to secure Brazil a 1-0 victory against a Spain team who had earlier been reduced to 10 men.
Wearing a baggy yellow shirt with the No 19 on its back, the 70th-minute substitute celebrated by hurdling the sponsor hoarding at a sold-out Zayed Sports City and running towards a group of jubilant Brazilian spectators.
The midfielder was sent off three minutes later, but his expulsion failed to change the course of the game and when the final whistle blew, a young man in Spanish red dropped to the grass defeated.
Andres Iniesta, unaware of the pivotal, life-changing role he would play in the final of another, more prestigious, Fifa tournament seven years later, was distraught.
Spain had lost their opening game to Argentina, but the defeat had made the squad more determined and brought the players closer together.
During quiet evenings in their hotel in the UAE capital, they would play video games, with Iniesta opting for AC Milan and Sergio Garcia, the Spanish striker, playing as Arsenal.
Iniesta, as he has made a habit of doing during his 13 years at Barcelona, regularly won.
When Spain lined up against Brazil in the final, they were confident. Their task, however, was made more difficult when defender Melli was sent off after just four minutes; a decision Iniesta labelled “a tough call”.
Spain coach Jose Ufarte was more critical: “I really don’t understand why the referee showed him the red card. My players didn’t deserve to be punished like that.”
Brazil, in contrast, were delighted: the victory completed a remarkable treble for the South American nation, whose senior team had won the World Cup a year earlier in Japan and South Korea, and whose Under 17s had beat Cesc Fabregas’s Spain in their own world championship final a few months later.
Marcos Paqueta, the Brazil U20 coach who would later manage Al Shabab, says strong bonds were built in the UAE that winter. He remains in contact with several of the players to this day.
The tournament was originally scheduled for earlier in the year, but had to be postponed because of the Iraq War. When it kicked off on November 27, it ran for three weeks and featured 52 games across six stadiums in three emirates: Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah.
Dani Alves, then playing as plain old “Daniel”, said his lasting memory of his UAE experience was learning that Emiratis love football.
"It's interesting because of the culture; being different from us Brazilians," Alves, who was named man of the match in the final, told The National in 2009.
“I didn’t expect that they would love football this much, but they do. They love football as much as we do. They are crazy about it. It’s a pleasant surprise for us when we play here and experience how everyone feels for the game.”
Fellow right-back Pablo Zabaleta, of Argentina, experienced similar sensations during his first visit to the UAE.
Then playing domestically for Buenos Aires-based San Lorenzo, Zabaleta was a member of the national side that beat Spain in the group stages and went on to reach the semi-finals before losing to Brazil. The squad stayed in a hotel in Dubai and he vividly recalls the local hospitality.
“I didn’t know what to expect and it was a good surprise; the fans were very passionate about their football and the people very friendly,” Zabaleta said recently.
“When I heard Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour bought Manchester City, I remembered all of this.
“I remember we didn’t have the phone card to call Argentina and the people there, they got the cards for us to call. It was fantastic, the way they wanted to make us all happy and enjoy being there.
“They wanted to make the tournament a success and I remember they tried to do their best. I saw the passion for football.”
As hosts, the UAE qualified for the tournament for only the second time in their history and immediately improved on their 1997 appearance where they had conceded 10 goals in the first two group games.
This time, cheered on by fervent home support, they recovered from a 4-1 opening-day defeat by Slovakia to beat Panama courtesy of goals from forwards Shehab Ahmed and Saleh Hamad.
Needing only a point against leaders Burkina Faso to set up a second-round match with Australia, the Emirates produced a strong defensive display in front of 13,000 fans to ensure a stalemate, despite being reduced to 10 men in the second half.
Coach Jean-Francois Jodar spoke of his pride in the team’s fighting spirit, but remained pragmatic: Australia would be tough.
The Australians had arrived in the UAE 10 days early to acclimatise to the warm playing conditions and shared a Dubai hotel with the Canada team.
Coach Ange Postecoglou had spoken highly of Alex Brosque, a No 10 with Marconi Stallions and the man earmarked to add firepower to Australia’s otherwise struggling strike-force.
Brosque, competing in his first tournament for his country, responded by snaring a goal and three assists in three group games.
“Our group was quite tough: We had a game against Canada, Serbia and then Brazil and were the complete underdogs,” he recalled this week.
“We topped it though and that probably surprised us a little bit. We then went into the game against the UAE and had to change our game-plan because all of a sudden we were expected to win.”
Brosque enjoyed two fruitful seasons at Al Ain between 2012 and 2014, but in 2003 when he arrived here for the first time, he did so with no knowledge of the country, its national team or its star playmaker.
That would soon change.
Ismail Matar, a quick and creative playmaker on the books at Al Wahda, was a sensation at his home tournament, pulling the strings in midfield, vocally urging on his teammates and popping up with a crucial goal.
In the final minute of regular time against Australia, it was Matar’s strike from distance that deflected into the net to settle the tie.
He was awarded the Golden Ball by Fifa as recognition as the tournament’s best player in what was a surprise decision.
Brosque, however, concedes the Australians did not know how to handle the Emirates’ No 10.
“I obviously got to see him for a few years as an older player and what he had as an older player was how smart he was, how powerful and quick he was.
“So take that back 10 years and he was all of that, just better. I remember every time the ball went near him he gave our defenders nightmares,” Brosque said.
“It was good to see a guy like that stand out so much and carry the whole country’s hopes with him. He was the one player we knew about going into the game, the one player we had to stop and, unfortunately, the one player we couldn’t stop.
“We didn’t know or worry too much about the other players; it was just Matar: a one-man show.”
The UAE were eliminated in the next round by Colombia, who would themselves be beaten by an Iniesta penalty in the semi-finals.
Such was the diminutive Spaniard’s level of performance in the Emirates, he was creating headlines internationally.
Fifa’s website called him “a sorcerer” and “a magician”, while Spain’s then-senior coach Inaki Saez remarked “You don’t teach Iniesta about football, he teaches you”.
The 19-year-old midfielder, predictably, remained grounded, telling Fifa.com: “I always had posters of my favourite footballers on my bedroom wall.
“The idea that there could be kids out there with my picture on their wall, or being recognised in the street, gives me a feeling beyond words.”
Little did he know that 12 years later he would be the de facto poster boy of Spanish football; the historic hero of Fifa World Cup 2010.
The U20 side may have fallen to Fernandinho’s header, but there is no disputing the standout star of the UAE’s first Fifa tournament was a young man by the name of Andres Iniesta.
* With additional reporting from Richard Jolly and John McAuley
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