(MENAFN- Arab Times) CANBERRA Jan 11 (AFP): United Arab Emirates stormed back from behind to defeat Gulf rivals Qatar 4-1 as they displayed their Asian Cup credentials with a fluent win on Sunday. Top-rated midfielder Omar Abdulrahman was at his creative best as both Ahmed Khalil and Ali Mabkhout grabbed a brace after 'Qatari Maradona' Khalfan Ibrahim put his side ahead. Khalfan's deftly taken chest and volley proved Qatar's best moment as the 2022 World Cup hosts proved fragile at the back with goalkeeper Qasem Burhan committing two costly blunders.
'I was sure they would play well but in football you can never be sure of the result and I am very happy with today's performance' said UAE coach Mahdi Ali. UAE started the brightest and Mabkhout almost opened the scoring after 10 minutes when he smashed the ball into the side-netting. Shortly afterwards midfielder Mohamed Abdulrahman blazed over the bar after the ball broke kindly to him on the edge of the box. The Emiratis rued their misses when the pint-sized Ibrahim took a rebound on the chest and acrobatically lobbed goalkeeper Majed Naser to open the scoring after 22 minutes. Qatar grew in confidence and they almost went 2-0 up when left-back Abdelkarim Hassan drilled a powerful shot narrowly past the post. However UAE always looked dangerous through the trickery and imagination of Omar Abdulrahman allied with qualifying top-scorer Makbhout and powerful targetman Khalil. And it was Khalil who grabbed the equaliser after 37 minutes after Omar Abdulrahman caused panic in the defence by twice stealing the ball down the right. Qatar failed to deal with the subsequent cross and after Khalil's powerful header was cleared off the line he knocked in the rebound to put UAE level eight minutes from half-time. The goal buoyed UAE and they came flying out of the traps at the start of the second half before going ahead seven minutes later. Goalkeeper Burhan reacted too late as Khalil's penetrating free-kick from the left edge of the box evaded everyone and sailed past into the far corner. 'My second goal was certainly more beautiful than my first' a delighted Khalil who was named man of the match said afterwards. 'I hit it exactly how I wanted to.' Four minutes later Burhan again failed to deal with a setpiece and he palmed the ball to Mabkhout who gratefully slotted it home for UAE's third. Qatar worked tirelessly to get back into the game and they hit the post with five minutes to go in what was their best spell of the game. But all-out attack left them exposed at the back and Omar Abdulrahman combined with Mabkhout to set up the prolific striker's second of the game on 89 minutes. Qatar coach Djamel Belmadi called it a 'really bad start'. 'They showed more quality more creativity. They scored from two free-kicks which really put us in a bad position' said the Algerian. 'It was a big punch in the face and it was difficult to come back. We tried but it was to late we didn't score soon enough to expect to equalise.' Meanwhile coach Mahdi Ali said on Sunday that his side were finally seeing the fruits of years of labour after their come-from-behind thrashing of Qatar. Ali insisted that the time was now right for his players to succeed after almost a decade of working with them. 'I have been with this group a long time maybe around nine years' Ali said. 'More than 16 of them have worked with me since 2004 when I was an assistant coach and then since 2008 as head coach. 'We've grown together we help each other a lot we know each other we understand each other and this is what I need to do my job.' Ali singled out man of the match Khalil as an example of what can happen when coach and player work together for a number of years. 'I have been working with Ahmed since 1998 since he was eight years old' Ali said of Sunday's man of the match. 'He always plays well in big events and in the most important games he always makes a difference for the team.' But Ali insisted his squad wouldn't get carried away after their opening Group C win against their Gulf rivals. 'We always think about how we can improve because we define success better than yesterday and today we played a good game but we have to work hard. 'There are many things we have to work harder at so we can go far ahead in this competition.'
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