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UAE ease past Kuwait

DUBAI — UAE national team returned to the winning ways with a long overdue 3-0 victory over former Gulf champions Kuwait at the Rashid Stadium on Tuesday night.

UAE led 1-0 at half-time. Saeed Al Kathiri headed home a perfect cross from Ali Mabkhout in the 36^th minute of the slow-paced first-half and Habib Fardan made it 2-0 in the 77^th minute with a brilliant rebound. Walid Abbas sealed the third goal with a strong left-footer five minutes before the final whistle.

However, few tens of the UAE die-hard fans were seen at the venue. Moreover, the high humidity coupled with the bad performance of the team in recent years has also contributed to the poor attendance of the spectators though admission was free.

In the meantime, the UAE players did nothing to show that they have reached a reasonable level of harmony during the first period despite being together for quite a long time. No real scoring opportunities were created and the defenders continued to make mistakes.

The only threat to the Kuwaitis came at the half hour mark. Mabkhout controlled Omer Abdul Rahman’s cross behind the defensive line, but his chip hit the crossbar.

Mabkhout missed a golden scoring opportunity for the simple reason that he wanted to score in style. Fortunately, five minutes later Mabkhout sent a perfect cross to Al Kathiri to beat Kuwait’s ’keeper Khalid Al Rashidi with a good finish.

Both coaches carried out some replacements after the break. Mahdi Ali sent in Ismail Al Hammadi to substitute Rashid Essa and later he pulled out Yousuf Jaber, Omer Abdul Rahman, Abdul Aziz Sanqoor, Mohammed Fawzi and Mohammed Ahmed to be replaced by Abdul Aziz Hussain, Habib Fardan, Walid Abbas, Khamis Ismail and Ali Al Amri.

The UAE lads showed improvement and continued to dominate without much success upfront. The Kuwaitis tried to fight back by leading some stray attacks and they were successfully blocked by the UAE defenders.

Towards the 78^th minute, Omer Abdul Rahman sent a long range free-kick which deflected off substitute ’keeper Mohammed Al Kallaf and fell in front of Habib Fardan who spared no effort to double the scoreline with a beautiful rebound.

Ismail Al Hammadi who caused a real headache to the Kuwaiti defenders did most of the work on the left flank and placed a spoon-fed pass to Walid Abbas to fire home from the mouth of the box.

Teams: UAE: Ali Khusaif, Hamdan Al Kamali, Mohammed Ahmed, Yousuf Jaber, Abdul Aziz Sanqoor, Omer Abdul Rahman, Amer Abdul Rahman, Mohammed Fawzi, Saeed Al Kathiri, Ali Mabkhout, Rashid Essa.

Kuwait: Khalid Al Rashidi, Fahad Awad, Mohammed Farah, Mohammed Rashid, Khalid Ali, Talal Nayef, Abdul Aziz Mashaan, Fahad Ebrahim, Talal Ahmed, Hamad Aman, Yousuf Nasser.

Referees: Mohammed Arafah (Jordan). Assistant Referee (1): Hassan Suqatri. Assistant Referee (2): Jassim Al Ali.