The UAE national team coach, the Portuguese Paulo Bento, stressed the difficulty of facing Kyrgyzstan scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday, at the Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi in the fifth round of the Asian continent’s qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup, pointing out that he cannot make promises that the “Whites” will achieve victory, stressing. However, he plays his role as a coach.
He said in a press conference held today in the capital, Abu Dhabi: “I know that the public and the media evaluate the coach based on the results, but on my part the technical staff provides the necessary information, studies the competitors, and prepares for them in the best possible way.”
He explained: “We are playing a very important match and we are playing against a team that has three points on its score, one point ahead of the UAE national team, which doubles the importance of the match. We were keen to inform the players of this matter, and we are completely confident in their ability to provide a good performance, as morale is high and motivations are high.” The players make us confident that the team will play a good match, but at the same time we must respect the opponent and give everything we have until we achieve victory.”
He added: “The preparations were different compared to the last few gatherings and camps. They are closer to what was the case in the gathering that we held last September. In general, we worked intensively to provide all the necessary information about the opponent, how to play the match, and the playing strategy that we will follow.”
He talked about the information he had about the Kyrgyzstan national team, and said: “The technical team did its job as it should, and collected information about the opponent’s way of playing and the tactics they follow, as their attacking style is simple and not complicated, and in defense they play with five players or sometimes three players, and they have a defender.” They play well in building attacks, and are good at early pressure, and exploiting the spaces between the lines in the attacking third of the field. I worked on conveying this information to the players, in anticipation of the different scenarios of the match. I stressed to the players the need to respect the opponent.”
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