Al-Emarat Al-Youm has learned that the national football team will return to the group stage again after the matches of the fifth round of the ADNOC Professional League, in preparation for its two upcoming matches against North Korea and Uzbekistan on October 10 and 15 in the third and fourth rounds, within Group One in the decisive qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup.
The source confirmed that the technical staff, led by Portuguese coach Paulo Bento, studied the reasons for the national team’s loss by a clean goal, and the negative points that need to be addressed, in addition to strengthening the positive points in the team’s ranks, after the national team’s last match against its Iranian counterpart, in the second round of the qualifiers.
The matches of the fifth round of the league will be held on the 5th and 6th of next October, so the technical staff will have a few days to prepare the team for the match against North Korea, and therefore it will not play any friendly matches according to the program that the technical staff had previously set.
The technical staff, led by Pinto and his assistants, is currently studying the new list that will be called up based on the players’ physical and technical readiness, in preparation for the next two matches, in light of the technical report for each player. It is not necessary for all members of the national team in the final lineup to retain their seats in the new list.
On the other hand, the national team players playing the third, fourth and fifth rounds of the league with their teams will give the technical staff the opportunity to assess the levels of these players and the recovery status of players who have suffered injuries in the past period, including the national team and Shabab Al Ahli striker Sultan Adel, who is expected to return to the national team in the new list, after he was excluded from the last list due to lack of full readiness, especially since he has become one of the most prominent elements that coach Pinto relies on in the starting lineup, after he replaced Al Nasr player Ali Mabkhout, who was excluded in the past period, based on the coach’s technical vision and his choices for the players he will rely on.
The participation of the national team players with their teams, namely: Al Ain, Al Wasl, Shabab Al Ahli and Sharjah, in the AFC Champions League for Elite Clubs and the AFC Champions League for Clubs 2, also represented a good opportunity for the technical staff to follow these players and assess their technical levels and the extent of each player’s readiness.
The UAE’s “White” team’s balance froze at three points, which it gained by defeating the Qatari team in the first round, while it had suffered a loss to Iran in the second round by a clean goal.
It is noteworthy that the latest list witnessed the inclusion of 30 players, including four players who joined the national team for the first time: Adly Mohamed, goalkeeper for Southampton, Kwame Kido, defender for Al Ain, Mackenzie Hunt, midfielder for Fleetwood, and Junior Ndaye, striker for Montpellier, France.
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