Our national football team will hold its final training session tomorrow evening, Monday, before facing the Qatari national team the day after, Tuesday, at Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium in Doha, Qatar’s capital. This match is part of the third and final round of Group A in the Asian qualifiers playoff for the 2026 World Cup. The UAE team enters with 3 points, earned from their 2-1 victory over Oman in the second round, while Qatar has one point from a goalless draw with Oman last Wednesday. This means that the UAE team will secure direct qualification from Group A to the World Cup finals in the USA, Canada, and Mexico if they draw against Qatar.

Matar Al-Sahbani, a member of the UAE national team’s administrative staff, expressed his happiness with the win over Oman, saying: “We consider our match against Oman as the first half in the journey to achieve the dream of reaching the World Cup finals. A more important second half awaits us against Qatar on Tuesday. I hope the media will spread positive spirit among the players and emphasize the importance of forgetting the result against Oman and focusing more on our match against Qatar.”

He added: “Players are required to exert greater effort against Qatar, and everyone understands this, despite the short interval of about 48 hours between the Oman and Qatar matches. We have great confidence in our players’ ability to overcome this difficult circumstance and deliver a performance no less strong than what they showed in the second half against Oman. Everyone is determined to make the UAE people happy with a long-awaited achievement.”

Meanwhile, Ismail Rashid, also a member of the UAE national team’s administrative staff, expressed his happiness at successfully passing the first round of the Asian playoff, saying: “We completed 90 minutes successfully, and I hope to repeat this in the remaining 90 minutes, which are the hardest and require greater effort. We must play with the same high fighting spirit we showed in the second half against Oman.”

He added: “Everyone deserves praise for the level they showed in the second half against Oman, starting with Romanian coach Olaroiu Cosmin, who made three bold substitutions at the beginning of the second half. Those changes paid off, performance improved, passing errors decreased significantly compared to the first half, and we managed to turn the match around by scoring two goals and winning the first round of the global playoff. I hope we repeat this success against Qatar and bring joy to the UAE people.”

It is worth mentioning that Asia has been allocated 8 direct slots plus a possible ninth slot through the global playoff. Six teams have already qualified: Australia, Iran, Japan, Jordan, South Korea, and Uzbekistan. In the fourth round of the qualifiers (the Asian playoff), the remaining six teams are divided into two groups of three teams each. The group winners qualify directly for the World Cup, while the two runners-up will play in the fifth round in November.