Gulf News
October 12

The UAE national team, who found themselves chasing shadows during their 4-1 loss to Bahrain two weeks ago, gave a much better account of themseves when playing out a 2-2 draw against Uzbekistan in an absorbing friendly at the Al Ahli Stadium yesterday.

Roy Hodgson's team, desperately looking for a boost in form before they fly out to Turkmenistan for their opening match in the Asian Cup qualifiers on October 19, looked a much better organised side to the one that catipulated against Bahrain.

They led twice and but for a lapse five minutes before the final whistle, should have comfortably won the match.

Al Ahli striker Faisal Khaleel, who had a good game, opened the scoring in the first half before Karmenko brought Uzbekistan level when he beat Al Ittihad's Mohammed Abdullah in the UAE goal.

The Jumaa brothers, Abdul Rahim and Abdul Salam, worked the midfield effectively and constantly fed their strikers with dangerous looking balls.

The UAE converted their early dominance in the second half into a 2-1 lead when Sharjah midfielder Nawaf Mubarak struck with an impressive shot.

Having taken the lead once again the home team used the width of the pitch to gain some valuable match-practice ahead of their Asian mission.

More chances came the way of their strikers who looked reasonably sharp, but somewhat less than willing to grasp the opportunities to test the rival goalkeeper.

Then just when it looked like UAe would run out a winner Uzbekistan struck the second equaliser, five minutes before time - Jabarov's shot beaten goalkeeper Mohammed Abdullah all ends up.

Hodgson was missing the services of several key players who were creating history for Al Ain in Thailand. But when viewed against the backdrop of their last warm-up match, which produced a disastrous result, yesterday's showing by the UAE team was promising at the least, if not encouraging.

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