UAE won't let the intensity drop in World Cup qualifier against North Korea

Paulo Bento's team will take confidence from performances against Qatar and Iran for key game in Al Ain on Thursday

UAE head coach Paulo Bento is pleased with how the team is shaping up. Chris Whiteoak / The National

If anyone was to be remotely well briefed on what to expect from North Korea’s national football team, you might expect it to be Paulo Bento.

The UAE coach did, after all, arrive for his current post straight from four years spent with South Korea’s national team.

However, glimpsing over the border and consuming some football is not quite as simple as it might be from, say, Bento’s native Portugal to Spain.

His UAE side face North Korea on Thursday night at the Hazza Bin Zayed Stadium in Al Ain, in the third fixture of the latest round of Asia’s World Cup qualifying process.

Bento professed himself content enough with the information they have on their visitors. Realistically, it must not amount to much more than what they saw in the opening round of games last month, when the Korean side lost 1-0 to Uzbekistan, then managed to hold Qatar 2-2 despite being down to 10-men for 62 minutes.

Whether or not there are gaps in the UAE’s research against the side frequently termed the most secretive in the world game, Bento insists his team control their own fate.

He is demanding the sort of desire and intent which carried the national team to a 3-1 win in Doha in their opening game, then in a spirited display in a 1-0 loss to Iran.

“The information we would like to give to the players is already done,” Bento said. “We need to adapt ourselves. We have observed some recent games, and we have prepared for this game in the same way we have prepared for the other ones.

“We have a lot of respect for this team. For sure, we will have a lot of difficulties to reach our goal, but our goal is clear: to try to get the three points.

“To do that it is important we compete in the same way we competed in the last two games. If we decrease our level regarding the intensity we put into the game, the aggressiveness we put into the game, it will be really difficult to get a good result.”

It is not just the opposition about whom mystery abounds. Bento cut a frustrated figure when he referenced the continued absence of Sultan Adil, the UAE centre forward.

The 20-year-old marked himself out as fine prospect for the national team, scoring in five games in succession. However, he has not been spotted since the most recent of those, against Bahrain in June, because of injury.

“I don’t know if he is going to keep playing football,” Bento said of Adil.

“I’m not sure about that because we had thought that he would be able to play after six weeks. Now, four months after, he is not training. You know that he is an important player for us.”

However, the home squad has been bolstered by debut call ups for Sharjah’s Marcus Meloni and Al Jazira’s Bruno de Oliveira. Both are naturalised UAE citizens who were born in Brazil.

“We have different options because of the process the federation started a long time ago,” Bento said.

“It is not just these guys that have come now, but other ones who are already in the national team. The more options we have, the better for us.

“We will decide the ones we think are better for each game. In my opinion, I think that until now the results have not been bad.

"We can improve, of course, and to do that it is important that we have more options, and not just ones that come from this process.”

While many of the players have suffered mixed fortunes in the month since they were last together, they are likely to be happy to be back on national duty.

The side was infused by a spirit of optimism after they stunned the double-Asian champions, Qatar, on the opening day of the six-team, 10-match round of qualifiers.

Their loss against Iran next time out was offset by the outstanding support they received at a packed Hazza Bin Zayed.

Tahnoon Al Zaabi, whose Al Wasl side have lost three big games over the past two weeks, says the players are inspired by the support they receive in Al Ain.

“In the last match we had a good crowd and atmosphere, and hopefully we can make them happy,” Tahnoon said.

“We want to give our best performance to get the three points. In the last game against Iran, we didn’t deserve to lose, but that’s football.

“I am hoping we have the same crowd, because that is one of the reasons we want to give our best performance, when we have a full stadium.”