The UAE team
Pic belongs and credited to: http://www.arabianbusiness.com/afc-apologises-for-online-uae-football-mistake--476904.htmlAs preparation for my "Armchair Generalship" for the UAE match I watched a few games, among them the 2012 match vs Bahrain, Kuwait, the DPRK(North Korea) then ending with both games of our PFPC 2013 match(to see our teams new tendecies, strengths and weakness. In this write up I"ll be focusing more on the game versus, Kuwait and Bahrain for the simple reason that they are a similar middle eastern team with a high ranking differential with us and, against DPRK because in recent years they ARE the highest ranking team we've ever played.
Prior to the game against Bahrain and Kuwait, an interview was taken by an Azkal defender and said in a nutshell that; they will NOT play very defensive as they want to know where they stand in the game itself and if we bunch this statement up with Weiss' oft stated wish to turn the Azkals into an offensive machine it is perhaps no surprise that taken as a whole the team did just that. For better or worse no more "parking the bus" for these Hans Michael Weiss led Azkals.
Below are the initial starting lineups. The only differences are some starters were not included either because of injury, fitness issues due to a previous injury or in the case of the Younghusbands in the middle east tour, disciplinary in nature.
