The players of our national team are in high spirits after they managed to overturn a 1-0 deficit against the Oman national team to a valuable 2-1 victory at Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium in the Qatari capital Doha, during the second round of Group 1 matches in the Asian qualifiers playoff for the 2026 World Cup.

With this win, our team became the frontrunner to secure the direct qualification spot from the group, aiming to appear in the World Cup for the first time in 36 years. They will face the hosts the day after tomorrow, Tuesday, needing only a draw to achieve this dream, while Qatar needs a win to qualify. Oman’s only hope to advance is for the UAE to defeat Qatar, allowing Oman to continue through the fifth round of the Asian qualifiers.

The “Al-Abyad” players expressed their happiness with the victory over Oman and promised to repeat the win against Qatar to please the Emirati people. Kayu Canedo, the striker of our national team, said: “We thank the fans for their great support, and we promise to repay them by working with all our strength to make them happy by securing the direct qualification ticket to the World Cup when we meet Qatar on Tuesday. We respect the Qatari team and understand the difficulty of the match.”

He added: “We played differently in the second half against Oman, showing our character on the field. Our Romanian coach, Olario Cosmin, is smart and asked us after scoring the equalizer to continue playing crosses and entering the opponent’s penalty area. We managed to score the second goal from a cross that deceived Oman’s defense and goalkeeper. Now we have finished celebrating and started focusing on the Qatar match.”

Meanwhile, our player Nicolas Gimenez said: “We had many chances to score in the second half and were the better team. We managed to score two goals and are now thinking about our match against Qatar. We thank the fans for their support, not only on match day but for arriving in Qatar days earlier to back us. We have 90 minutes ahead to repay them and make them happy by qualifying for the World Cup.”

Yahya Al-Ghasani shared their joy, saying: “We have achieved nothing yet because our win over Oman did not fulfill our dream of qualifying for the World Cup that we seek. We have a more important second step ahead against the Qatari team, which has the same ambition, making the match more difficult. I will try to give all my strength, despite the limited time to recover from injury, to be ready to participate, even if I play with one foot.”