The UAE have made good on their promise. They sent the perfect Eid gift to their fans back home with a resounding 4-0 win over Hong Kong in a key Asian Cup qualifier.
Ali Mabkhout scored three times and Walid Abbas added an injury-time strike as the UAE consolidated their lead in Group E, taking their total to nine points in three games with a win last night at the Hong Kong National Stadium.
The result extended the UAE’s lead to five points over Hong Kong and Uzbekistan, who registered their first win following a 3-1 home result over Vietnam.
Mahdi Ali, the UAE coach, still insisted his team’s ticket to 2015 Australia was far from over with three games left.
“We have accomplished the third step in this qualification,” he said. “We have three steps to go and we are near to qualifying, but in football, you never know.
“When you say you will win today or tomorrow, they’re easy words to say, but to win on the field isn’t so easy. We played well today and I hope that we can continue to play like this.
“It wasn’t an easy game against Hong Kong. They tried to close the space in the first half, but the players did well, we tried to create chances and wait for the right moment. We scored the first goal and then things went as we wished.
“I’m happy for the players and I hope we can keep the same level of performance in the next games.”
Mabkhout put the visitors ahead on the half hour when he stabbed home a left-footer from a long pass from Walid Abbas, which took a slight deflection off Wisdom Fofo’s boot and fell in the Al Jazira forward’s path. He doubled the lead 10 minutes into the second half, finding the target on his second attempt after his first shot at the Hong Kong goal was blocked by Lee Chi-ho.
Mabkhout’s treble came from space created by Omar Abdulrahman, and Abbas rounded off the victory with a fourth in injury time.
The three goals matched Mabkhout’s season total in Arabian Gulf League competition.
The margin of victory could have been bigger had Ahmed Khalil been on target with half the scoring opportunities that came his way. Khalil had six attempts from inside the box but could not get any past Yapp Hung Fai, the Hong Kong goalkeeper. “It’s a very disappointing result,” said Kim Pan-gon, the Hong Kong coach.
“Our players did well, they followed our instructions from the beginning but the UAE was a really high-quality attacking team.
“If we had stopped them for the first 45 minutes, it would have been better. But they’re at a different level. I appreciate what the players did and they kept fighting.
“But we still have a chance. We have three games left and we are aiming to get four points in our next three games. We need to get one point from our games before we go to Vietnam.”
apassela@thenational.ae
Report card
UAE created several chances and scored from half of them. 8/10
Hong Kong adopted a defensive strategy at the beginning but having conceded a first-half goal they had to open up. 3/10
Man of the match: Ali Mabkhout’s hat trick took his tally to nine goals in five games
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