Matar Al Sahbani, the Al Ain team manager, has appealed to the club's fans not to boo their former coach Cosmin Olaroiu in Saturday's Super Cup encounter against Al Ahli.
The game will mark the first time Olaroiu will coach against his former club since leaving them for Ahli over the summer.
Al Sahbani said: "The Super Cup match is between Al Ain and Ahli; it is not between Al Ain and Cosmin," Al Sahbani said. "We know very well what Cosmin is now thinking about and what he is planning. We are aware of his technical ways as a coach and our players do, too."
Al Ain appointed Jorge Fossati, the Uruguayan who led Qatar's Al Sadd to the 2011 Asian Champions League title, as Olaroiu's replacement last month.
Al Sahbani is confident the new man can guide his side to a winning starting against Ahli. "Fossati is now working on setting his technical plans for the match against Ahli and we provided him with all of Ahli's matches, and Cosmin's technical ways he followed while he was coaching us," he said.
He said Al Ain have been training behind closed doors at the direction of the coach.
"Personally, I don't prefer closed-door training as we heavily depend on our fans," he said.
"We know their presence in training gives the players huge motivations to give more and they are one of the main reason for all the successes we achieved."
Fossati defended his decision, saying: "I don't know if there are fans of other teams with the fans of Al Ain … I can't give information about the team now, not because I don't like to but I can't give information that benefits the rivals."
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