Pot luck awaits the UAE Olympic team

Spain, Brazil and Great Britain will be there. So will Uruguay, Egypt and Japan.
Also taking their place among the global heavyweights in the London 2012 Summer Games football tournament: the UAE, first-time contestants for Olympic gold.
Now that the Emiratis have qualified for London, in dramatic fashion, with a 3-2 victory over Uzbekistan in Tashkent, it is doubtful that anyone at the Football Association will be tempting fate by looking ahead to possible matchups in the 16-team Olympic tournament.
It will be played over a span of 17 days at six stadiums in Britain, including two of the most venerated football grounds in the world: Wembley Stadium, London, and Old Trafford, Manchester.
Each team will be allowed to bring three "overage" players to what otherwise is an Under 23 tournament and considered the U23 World Cup by Fifa. Through the qualifying phase, only U23 players were eligible to compete.
Other nations who have qualified are South Korea, Switzerland, Belarus, Morocco and Gabon.
North America will determine its two participants in a tournament beginning later this month, Oceania begins competition today to determine the winner of its one berth.
The last nation into the field will be the winner of a play-off between Senegal and the survivor of an Asia round-robin involving Uzbekistan, Oman and Syria.
That final game will be played in Coventry, England, on April 23, and the draw for the Olympic tournament will be held the next day.
The UAE are ranked No 122 in the world by Fifa, 53 slots below the second lowest-ranked team (Belarus) already in the tournament, and can be sure of being placed in "Pot 4" with three other lower-ranked sides, such as No 69 Belarus and No 64 Egypt.
"Pot 1" likely will contain Spain, Uruguay, Brazil and Great Britain.
The first three are ranked Nos 1, 4 and 5 in the world by Fifa, and England, which will contribute most of the players to the Great Britain team, are No 6.
Olympic football results do not track neatly with a nation's senior-team prowess.
Since 1968, nations that won Olympic gold include Hungary, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Nigeria and Cameroon. Middling powers such as Bulgaria, Chile, Ghana and Paraguay have won silver or bronze during that time.
Argentina won the past two gold medals, but they will not be in London. Brazil, third at Beijing 2008, have never won Olympic gold.
Mahdi Ali, the UAE coach, said much has yet to be decided about how many players will be called in to training, and when. The Pro League season ends on May 19.
"We will not begin training right after because some of these guys have been playing for two years straight, and they must have some rest," he said. "It may be June before we are all together."
Other decisions to be made include the location of a training camp before the Olympics, as well as opponents for friendlies.
The men's tournament begins on July 26, the day before Opening Ceremonies.
If the UAE are involved in a match at one of the sites most distant from London, such as Hampden Park in Glasgow or St James' Park in Newcastle, the team will be less likely to travel to the England capital the day after a match to march in the parade of nations.
The second and third group games will be staged on July 29 and August 1, with the quarter-finals on August 4, semi-finals on August 7 and finals on August 11 at Wembley.
Other football sites include the City of Coventry Stadium and the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.
Because five of the six stadiums hosting football matches are significantly distant from London, the football teams will spend minimal time with athletes from other disciplines, and will not take up residence in the Athletes Village in the capital.
Three group-stage games will be played at Wembley, and another three at Old Trafford, giving the UAE a good chance of playing in one of those two stadiums.
Games will begin as early as noon in England (3pm in the UAE) and as late as 7.45pm (10.45pm in the UAE).
 
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