DUBAI // As the UAE’s dejected players disembarked the first flight out of Sydney after their World Cup loss on Tuesday night, their newly-ex manager slipped away barely noticed.
It seemed as though Mahdi Ali had quickly become a man apart from his players.
He collected his luggage from Carousel 1 at Dubai International’s Terminal 3, shook hands with his coaching staff, then made a low-key exit in the opposite direction to his players.
“Mahdi Ali did not tell us the decision of his resignation, and if he sees that it is a correct decision, this is up to him,” Ahmed Khalil said after the game in Sydney. The players seemed to be of a mind that it is time for a new voice.
So where to next?
The Football Association are likely to look for a foreign manager as the long-term successor, with Alejandro Sabella said to be in their sights.
That has its merits.
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Read more
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■ 'I did my best': Mahdi Ali resigns after five years in charge
■ Report: Australia too strong for injury-hampered UAE
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An experienced overseas manager could finesse the obvious skills the national team players have, as well as showing them a different way to what they know already.
By the end, a uniformity of method had become a failing of Mahdi Ali’s side. They were predictable.
“We know they don’t change an awful lot in their style of play,” Mile Jedinak, Australia’s captain, said on the eve of the match in Sydney.
Clearly. Australia won by the same margin (2-0) and via the same method (aerial prowess at corners) as they did in the Asia Cup two years ago.
Letting a failing like that recur is the sort of thing that ends qualifying campaigns, and managerial reigns, too.
There needs to be a new way of thinking. Having said all that, going foreign is in itself not a cure-all.
Forging a national identity is vital. Australia are a good example.
The UAE can learn much from their conquerors on Tuesday. And not just basics like how to score from corners.
Ange Postecoglou, their manager, was born in Greece, but to all intents and purposes is a dyed-in-the-wool Australian.
He has his critics, but the facts are his side are champions of Asia, and are set relatively fair for a trip to a fourth World Cup in succession.
“What I have said from Day 1 is, I will not talk down to our players,” Postecoglou said this week, of his methods at trying to forge an identity for Australian football.
“I will not speak to our players if they are not as good as somebody else if they’re not Australian.”
The intimation being that maybe the three overseas coaches who filled the role before him did.
Clearly not all coaches from a different country are like that, but a general grasp of the prevailing culture should be a compulsory, rather than preferred, point on the job spec.
In Sabella’s case, it is easy to think a manager used to being able to call on the services of Lionel Messi or Javier Mascherano might find the conditions that are unique to the UAE frustrating.
Mahdi Ali spelt out one such issue as he fell on his sword late on Tuesday night at the Sydney Football Stadium.
“We, as the UAE, do not have such a big number of players,” he said. “You have 14 teams in the professional league. The 14 teams have four foreigners. Multiply seven by 14, it comes to around [98] players.
“So it is very difficult if you lose a player to find another player. With the league we have, it is very difficult to play such big games.”
The best option to marry both understanding of UAE football culture, with imported knowledge, as well as proven track record, might be right on our doorstep already.
In fact, just down the road from the UAE’s headquarters in Khawaneej.
Cosmin Olaroiu, the Romanian manager of Al Ahli, has won the Arabian Gulf League four out of the past five seasons.
Coming as it did with two separate clubs – Al Ahli and Al Ain – that is quite a record.
He has had a crack at the international game, briefly, when he job-shared the Ahli role with managing Saudi Arabia for a month at the turn of 2015.
Nobody has a deeper understand of the workings of the league, or the human resources available to the national team, than Olaroiu.
Given the chance, he could take this talented generation of players to the next level.
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