One of the standout players in the UAE league conspired to push World Cup qualification further from the national team’s reach, as he inspired Iran to a 2-0 win in Tehran on Thursday night.
Sardar Azmoun, the imported star striker for Dubai’s table-topping club Shabab Al Ahli, scored the opening goal for the home team.
Mohammed Mohebi put the game beyond the UAE in the second phase of an eventful qualifier in the Iranian capital.
With three games left in the group, the national team’s hopes of claiming one of the two automatic qualification places for the main event in the United States, Canada and Mexico are starting to fade.
The result leaves them nine points behind first-placed Iran. In a game that kicked off simultaneously, Uzbekistan beat Kyrgyzstan 1-0. That extended their advantage in second place over the UAE to six points.
The Uzbeks have to travel to the UAE in the last window of this round of qualifying, in June. The national team also have fixtures against North Korea and Kyrgyzstan in which to try to cut the deficit.
Paulo Bento, the UAE coach, had been creative in his attempt to shock the group leaders, and finals regulars, Iran.
Most notably, Fabio De Lima, the Al Wasl playmaker who scored four goals in the last qualifier, against Qatar in November, had to make do with a place on the bench.
Caio Lucas debuted, nearly nine years after he first arrived at Al Ain from Kashima Antlers, at the tip of the UAE attack. He would have plenty of work to do as the lone striker in a 5-4-1 set up.
Lucas Pimenta, Al Wahda’s Brazil-born defender, also made his first appearance for the national team, at the centre of the new-look five-man backline.
That included Mackenzie Hunt on the left, where he usually plays his club football for Fleetwood Town in the English fourth tier. More often for the UAE in his budding career so far, though, he has played as a central midfielder.
If the UAE line-up was novel, the threats posed by their opposition were well known.
During the pre-kick off formalities, Azmoun was the last player in the Iran line-up. As the sides greeted each other, he was met with a big smile by many, especially from Yahya Al Ghassani and Harib Abdalla, his teammates at Adnoc Pro League title-chasers Shabab Al Ahli.
In the fifth minute, the two UAE-based forwards for Iran combined to create the first opening of the game.
Mehdi Ghayedi, the Ittihad Kalba winger who scored the goal which separated the two sides in the corresponding fixture earlier in the group, crossed from the left.
Azmoun chested the ball into the path of Mohebi. Somehow, he managed to shoot at Khalid Essa when it seemed easier to score, and the ball bounced away to safety off the goalkeeper’s knee.
The match was delayed in the 11th minute when one of the floodlights at the Azadi Sports Complex failed. As the ground staff attempted to fix the fault, the crowd flashed the torches from their mobile phones as an impromptu solution.
Fourteen minutes after the delay started, the referee directed the players off the field and to the dressing rooms.
Until that point, the two sides had tried to keep themselves warm in the cool and wet conditions by kicking balls around between themselves. For some of the time, Al Ghassani and Azmoun were giggling between themselves about the situation.
Almost as soon as the players had made it to the dressing rooms, the malfunction was rectified. But by the time the light was back up to full beam and play resumed, the delay had been 29 minutes.
It was UAE who settled best after the disruption. Lucas had the chance to mark his debut in style, but fired a fierce drive just wide. And Hunt, after one of many fine overlapping runs from full-back, shot straight at the goalkeeper.
All the promise from the away side dissipated when, with 73 minutes on the clock – but still just before half-time – Azmoun found himself totally unmarked six yards out.
Where Mohebi failed from similar range earlier on, Azmoun could not miss, and he headed the hosts into the lead.
Mohebi did have the ball in the net straight after the interval, latching on to a long ball out of Iran’s defence, outpacing Pimenta, then shooting past Essa. The away side were reprieved by the offside flag, though.
Mohebi finally did get his goal in the 70th minute. The UAE had just reshuffled their shape, bringing De Lima and Jonatas Santos, another debutant, on to chase a goal.
All it served to do was to leave more space at the back. Mohebi made the most of it immediately, racing through and forcing the second goal past Essa.