Gulf Cup Diary: Youth to the fore

Omar Abdulrahman (C) (aged 21) – awarded best player of the 21st Gulf Cup

I like stories.

I have always liked stories. The best stories, as I tell anyone who listens, are those which make you smile but also leave a lasting impression on you. The best stories can inspire – and I have come across countless inspiring ones. As a football lover, there is one particular type of story that always gets me excited. Remember Fergie’s Fledglings? I was a toddler when the Fledglings started writing their own tale, but visual and print media have helped to almost reproduce their magic for me.

On 19 August 1995, Manchester United lined up at Aston Villa on the opening day of the season with 6 players aged below 23. They duly went on to lose 1-3 to the Villans. It seemed Alex Ferguson’s apparent gamble did not pay off. Scepticism reigned. TV pundit Alan Hansen put the cherry on the cake when he scathingly remarked, “You’ll never win anything with kids.” It is an intriguing story, but not something that can be fully recounted now.

Fergie’s Fledglings

It is, however, a story that tends to reappear in my mind time and again. The last time it did was during the 21st Gulf Cup final. As I mentioned in my previous Gulf Cup entry, this tournament creates waves in the Gulf like no other. The thousands of fans who swarmed into Bahrain to cheer on their teams, are testament to that. They left Bahraini shores only after witnessing a special event. The same goes for me; I have followed the Cup for the past eight years, but no edition in recent history made me as happy as this one. It gave hope, not just to me, but to millions of people in the Gulf; hope, that their football can turn the tide. Their football is not dead; it is alive and kicking.

At the beginning of the tournament, six of the eight participating teams were ranked below 100 in FIFA rankings. The performances of the Gulf teams at the 2014 World Cup qualifiers were woeful, to say the least. But as the Saudi referee blew the final whistle on Friday and the celebratory fireworks went off, it seemed there was a much better future to look forward to. That the United Arab Emirates (UAE) won the title is not really important; how they won it is. In a manner quite similar to Fergie’s Fledglings, UAE coach Mahdi Ali’s young charges shocked the experts.

The UAE national team at the 21st Gulf Cup

When Iraq and UAE met in the final, it was quite pleasing as they were the only two teams to come into the event with local coaches, quite contrasting to traditional Gulf convention, which requires you to hire and fire foreign coaches in a game of Russian roulette. That wasn’t the only surprise. Numerous veterans were dropped and instead, up stepped crops of exciting young players – players who had been playing together at various age levels. Now this is a gamble. You don’t go into the Gulf Cup, of all things, with a local coach and a young squad. To put the whole thing into perspective: UAE’s squad had an average age of 22 while the Iraqi squad came up with just 20.6!

Sending a relatively second string squad to any tournament requires guts because it always raises eyebrows. It makes people question your attitude. It is as if you treat the event with indifference. But I protest. It doesn’t always have to be like that. ‘Second-string’ doesn’t always have to mean a weaker team. In UAE’s case, it definitely wasn’t. In fact, I would say this new team is much better than the one that turned out for UAE in the World Cup qualifiers 12 months back. At the beginning of 2012, there was a UAE team that finished embarrassingly at the bottom of their WC qualifying group. At the end of the year, there was a completely different team in place; a total overhaul. That’s how I describe the changes that took place in UAE football during the last 12 months.

There are two keys to understanding those changes. The first is a ‘core’ group of players who have developed, in quite an amazing manner, through UAE’s youth football teams. The second key is Mahdi Ali, the coach. The former UAE midfielder has brought unparalleled sporting success to his country, one youth team at a time. Starting with the under-16s, he moved on to the under-19s in 2008 and as a first step, he led the team to the Asian Youth Championship title in Saudi Arabia. That triumph sent them to Egypt for the FIFA World Youth Championship in 2009, where UAE surprised everyone by charging on to the quarterfinals. Only a 122nd minute goal by the Costa Ricans denied them a place in the semis. In 2010, Mahdi took over the under-23 team and the team went on an equally amazing run in the Asian Games football tournament in Guangzhou, finishing runners-up to Japan. He then led them to the Olympics for the first time, finishing unbeaten and on top of their qualifying group. In London, they did not win a single match but returned home with their heads held up high, winning a lot of praise for their confident displays in a group containing Britain, Uruguay and Senegal. A couple of months later, Mahdi was promoted to the helm of the senior national team.

London 2012 : UAE lost their matches, but won hearts

Here lies the significance of the two keys. The ‘core’ group contained 7-8 players who have grown along with Mahdi throughout the last four years. Players like Hamdan al-Kamali, Ahmed Khalil, Omar Abdulrahman, Amer Abdulrahman, Abdelaziz Sanqour, Mohammed Ahmed, Ali Mabkhout and Saeed al-Kathiri have been with Mahdi through the journey and, without a doubt, have grown into mature top-level footballers under his tutelage. Whenever Mahdi got promoted, his players graduated too. And the same happened with the senior national team. Out went seasoned veterans, in came the golden generation.

Even though I knew Mahdi’s track record, I still expected a more gradual transition. I mean, come on, this is the senior team, not the youth team! And this is a big tournament. But Mahdi was determined that his move would pay off. Pay off it did – and in style. Winning the Gulf Cup for the second time and leaving a region dazzled, Mahdi and his golden generation have proved a point. Youth power is great – when mixed with the right amount of experience and an influential commanding coach, it can do wonders.

UAE coach Mahdi Ali with the Gulf Cup trophy

Iraq had a youthful team too; more youthful than UAE, to be honest. They had an impressive Cup run too, brushing aside powerhouses Saudi Arabia, defending champions Kuwait and hosts Bahrain. But in UAE, they found a mountain too high to climb. I suspect UAE edged their Iraqi counterparts because of their golden generation, a ‘core’ group who have grown and improved together, bringing out the best of each player.

So was Mahdi right? Taking into account all his recent success with his youth philosophy, one is tempted to say ‘Yes, of course.’ But lying ahead are bigger challenges. The 2015 Asian Cup and the 2018 World Cup form the real litmus test. If Mahdi and his boys can continue on the upward curve, then who knows?

Just as Fergie’s Fledglings went on to conquer a lot of uncharted territories, Mahdi’s Maestros may just dazzle us all again – teaching people like Alan Hansen that you can win a thing or two with kids.