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Unstoppable UAE fly past Bahrain

Ali Ahmed Mabkhout’s four-goal salvo inspired the UAE to an emphatic 6-2 victory over Bahrain at Al Wasl’s Zabeel Stadium on Tuesday evening.

Mabkhout’s first-half brace ensured Mahdi Ali’s side went in at the break level at 2-2 after Esmail Abdullatteff and Hussain Ali had twice given Bahrain the lead.

He netted two more thereafter and a Hamdan Al Kamali penalty and Omar Abdulrahman’s strike added further gloss to the one-sided scoreline.

The hosts fell behind as early as the fourth minute as Abdullatteff broke into the penalty area down the left channel and was brought down by Al Kamali’s outstretched leg. Abdullatteff duly picked himself up and confidently converted past UAE goalkeeper Khalid Eisa from 12 yards.

Ali’s men were then lucky not to fall further adrift shortly afterwards. Abdullatteff again got away down the left-hand side, got to the byline and cut the ball back across for Abdullah Yousif, who contrived to miss and find Eisa from merely a matter of yards.

Omar Adbulrahman found Mabkhout and his header beat Abbas Ahmed Ali to restore parity.

Level terms did not last long though as, eight minutes later, Alsayed Deyaa Saeed swung in a far-post corner and Ali nodded home amid some static man-marking overall in the 18-yard box.

The UAE rallied once more and Mabkhout and Saeed Al Katheeri both tested Ali in the visitors’ goal before the former levelled things up again on 39 minutes.

Perennial creator-in-chief Omar Adbulrahman played in Mabkhout and, although Ali managed to save his initial effort, a lucky ricochet allowed him to practically walk the ball over the goal-line at the second attempt and into an empty net.

Fans, players give apt reply to blunder

The UAE’s fans and players made their feelings known to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) before Tuesday night’s friendly game against Bahrain at Al Wasl’s Zabeel Stadium.

The game’s governing body were forced to apologise to the UAE Football Association (UAE FA) on Monday after a preview piece on their website for Sunday’s encounter with Uzbekistan referred to the country’s national team as “sand monkeys.”

A simple sorry seemingly simply didn’t wash though with the Emirati supporters in attendance here, with two prominent banners reading: ‘AFC Shame On You’ and ‘AFC Remember That UAE Has Been Insulted’ along the perimeter fencing surrounding the pitch.

If that wasn’t enough, the UAE’s players also held up another banner which said: “To those who called us sand monkeys, we are Zayed’s Lions” as the national anthem rang out of the PA system.

That same message was also displayed simultaneously on all of the electronic advertising hoardings around three-quarters of the field and at the half-time interval as well.

An official AFC statement read on Monday: “The AFC apologises for an editorial mistake in which the UAE national team was inadvertently referred to by an inaccurate nickname on the AFC’s official website in the article ‘UAE to take cautious approach’ dated October 12^th 2012 (Friday).

“The error, which was mainly because of referral to a popular web-based encyclopedia by the concerned Editor, was corrected immediately after it was noticed.