Athletes: The team’s benefit from the “Asian Champions” is incomplete

Athletes have confirmed that the participation of the Emirati teams in the AFC Champions League is incomplete and does not serve the first national team adequately, as this participation has not yet reflected positively on the performance of “Al-Abyad” technically and physically, as evidenced by the decline in its results in the third round of the qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup.

Despite the presence of four Asian clubs participating, they face large teams full of stars and experienced people.

Al Ain Al Wasl teams participate in the AFC Champions League for the elite, and Shabab Al Ahly and Al Sharjah also participate in the AFC Champions League 2.

They told Emirates Al-Youm that the team’s failure to benefit greatly from the clubs’ participation in Asian championships is due to several reasons, the most prominent of which is that the way the player performs with his club differs from the method followed by the coach of the Portuguese national team, Paulo Bento, and that there are clubs that rely on… Its participation in the Asian Championships includes a large number of foreign players at the expense of local players who sit on the bench, which leads to the team not benefiting from this continental participation in the desired manner, in addition to the fact that most of the players who participate with their teams in the Asian Championships did not make a difference with the team.

When they join, due to stress or exposure to injuries, they point out that the player, not the national team, is the beneficiary of the clubs’ continental participation.

Last Friday, the team launched an internal preparation camp on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi in preparation for the match between the Kyrgyzstan and Qatar teams on the 14th and 19th of this month, respectively, in the fifth and sixth rounds for Group A in the third round of the qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup finals.

The national team currently occupies third place in the group standings with only four points, lagging behind the Qatari national team on goal difference, while the Iranian national team leads the group with 10 points, the Uzbek national team is second with the same score, the Kyrgyz national team comes fifth with three points, and the North Korean national team is in last place with two points.

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“Al-Abyad” had played four matches, as it defeated its Qatari counterpart (3-1) at the beginning of its qualifying campaign, while it lost to Iran in the second round with a clean goal, and tied with North Korea (1-1) in the third round, and lost in the third round.

The fourth round against Uzbekistan with a clean goal.

Technical gains The technical expert at the International Federation of Association Football, Abdullah Hassan, said that the technical benefit for the national team from the clubs’ participation in continental championships exists, but it is incomplete for several reasons, including that most teams depend in Asian participation on players from outside the national team, and some of the players from these clubs They are either tired or injured when they join the national team, which sometimes prompts the national team coach to exclude them or replace them with players who are technically inferior to them.

He said: “From a technical standpoint, any player’s participation with his team at the continental level has technical benefits and gains, as it adds new experiences to the player, but does the national team benefit from this participation?” Benefit to the player only The coach of the Dibba Al-Hisn team, Hassan Al-Abdouli, confirmed that the benefit from the participation of continental clubs goes to the player who maintains his technical and physical levels, and does not go to the national team.

He added: “The way these players play with their teams is different from the way the national team plays, and some of these players also Sometimes they play with the national team in positions different from those they are accustomed to with their teams.

” Hassan Al-Abdouli stressed the importance of standing with the national team and supporting it strongly in this important stage in the qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup, and added: “The national team is currently in a stage in which the players are supposed to have adapted to the style of play adopted by the coach, Paulo Bento, and we expect them to shine in the matches.

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” The clubs did not help the national team In turn, the director of the first football team at Al-Jazira Al-Hamra Club, Adel Al-Amiri, said that the clubs’ participation in the AFC Champions League is supposed to develop the player’s level and work to better prepare him when he joins the national team, stressing at the same time that the clubs have not It helps the national teams due to the presence of a large number of foreign players in their ranks, in addition to the issue of naturalization, and this matter does not serve the interests of the “white team.

” He pointed out that the players the national team coach is currently using are those available to him, although some of these players do not have enough opportunity to play with their teams due to the clubs’ reliance on foreign players.

Al-Amiri explained: “When local clubs participate as Asians, they are The regulations participate with the largest possible number of foreign players, so that there are nine foreign players on the field out of 11, and there are other clubs that benefited from the naturalization decision, and therefore the return to the national team from this participation is very modest.

” Al-Amiri continued: “In my estimation, if the best coach in the world were brought in to carry out the process of selecting players from the league, he would be confused because the current mechanism for the game does not serve the national team, while the system related to the game is supposed to work for the benefit of the national teams.

” Al-Amiri called on the clubs to put the national team’s interest at their top priority, and to give the international player in their ranks the opportunity to play mainly.

Excluding Ali Saleh from the “White” camp The Football Association said in a press statement yesterday that the technical staff of the national team excluded the player, Ali Saleh, from the national team’s camp currently held in Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi, after medical tests confirmed his injury and his need for treatment and rest.

For its part, the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) appointed a team of referees from the Sultanate of Oman to manage the national team’s match with Kyrgyzstan, next Thursday, at the Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium at Al Jazira Club in the capital, Abu Dhabi, led by Ahmed Al-Kaf, referee, Abu Bakr Al-Amri, first assistant, and Rashid Al-Ghaithi, second assistant.

Qasim Al-Hatemi was the fourth referee, in addition to the Kuwaitis Abdullah Jamali, the video referee, and Abdullah Arab, the assistant video referee.

Dubai – Emirates Today.