DUBAI: A squad of ambitious Arab footballers, despite having completed a draining 12,500km journey from the UAE, are hoping to benefit from some home comforts this week as they prepare to contest the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in the Bahamas, starting Thursday.
White sandy beaches, the reflection of an Atlantis Hotel glimmering in the crystalline Caribbean Sea and the inescapable sense of wealth oozing from the sun-kissed, cruise-ship tourists could all help UAE coach Mohamed Bashir and his band of Emirati beach ballers acclimatize.
Not that a FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup is unfamiliar territory for this team. Unlike the UAE men’s national football side, which qualified for the 1990 World Cup in Italy but is yet to replicate the achievement in six attempts and almost certain to miss out on next summer’s showpiece in Russia, the Emirates’ beach soccer team has appeared at four of the past six tournaments. In 2009, the country became the first — and as yet only — Asian nation to host the event.
Ali Karim, the 12-man squad’s oldest player at 36, is an ever-present force for Al-Abyad, having made his national debut in Rio de Janeiro in 2007. He has featured heavily at each of his country’s four appearances, scoring six times in 12 games, and although 10 years have passed, his passion for the game — and his pride at representing his country — continues unabated.
When the UAE met Lebanon in the semifinal of the Asian qualifiers last month, a suspended Karim watched anxiously from the stands in Malaysia. Knowing victory would guarantee the winning team a place in the Bahamas, a nervous match ended with theUAE edging a dramatic penalty shootout. Karim, the absent national team captain, burst into tears among the fans, later conceding that “things got so tense, I could not control my emotions.”
In the next two weeks, he is hoping to play a more impactful role as his nation attempts to make history in the 16-team tournament. While Bahrain became the first Gulf country to reach the quarterfinals in 2006 and Iran emulated that feat in 2013 and 2015, UAE has never progressed through the group stages at a World Cup. The Emiratis face a difficult task in ending that run this year, having been drawn with world champion Portugal, Concacaf champion Panama and South American finalist Paraguay.
Yet Karim is confident.
“When we got back home [from Malaysia] we didn’t rest,” the Al Nasr skipper told FIFA.com. “We stepped up our training for the World Cup, especially when we found out who we were playing. I think we’ll do well because of the skill levels we’ve got now. We can make it to the second round and we’ve got our hearts set on it. We’re excited at the idea of another major achievement.”
The Emiratis will get their campaign under way Friday night against Paraguay in the 3,500-capacity Nassau Stadium at Malcolm Park. The arena, which was built at a cost of $4 million and overlooks the original Atlantis Paradise Island hotel, is the largest permanent structure ever constructed for a FIFA Beach Soccer event. Such expenditure has been called reckless by some residents, who would have preferred to see money invested in improving the lives of the lesser-seen Bahamians living outside the tourist-heavy downtown area.
The most recent survey by the Bahamas Department of Statistics reported 12.8 percent of the country’s population live below the poverty line, while local newspapers regularly carry stories of corruption, rape, murder and robbery.
“We are approaching elections so it is difficult to know how things will unravel,” Denko Johnson, a Bahamas resident working in finance, told Arab News. “It’s possible some of the money from the beach soccer will filter through to the poorer communities, but I wouldn’t be too hopeful. It might help the government in terms of tourist numbers and meeting their quotas, but the poorer communities here are unlikely to see any of the benefits.”
Sheldon Longley, sports editor of The Nassau Guardian, is more hopeful.
“There has never been a beach soccer event of this magnitude in the Caribbean, so there is a lot of excitement building,” Longley said. “Generally, Bahamians support sport very well, so we are expecting big crowds. The tournament in February had an overflow of people lining the nearby bridge trying to watch the matches, so I expect it will be the same,” he said.
The stadium was finished in January and hosted the following month’s Concacaf Beach Soccer Championship; an event that was fully embraced by residents. With the local organizing committee distributing match tickets for free for this week’s tournament, sell-out crowds are being anticipated once more.
As the UAE squad makes its way to the stadium tomorrow night, the plentiful tournament posters emblazoned with the words “Beach Soccer World Cup — Bahamas 2017” will ensure they do not forget where they are. Given their growing pedigree in this tournament, however, that should not mean they feel any less at home.
UAE in the Bahamas for FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup
UAE in the Bahamas for FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup
Liverpool shine in Champions League, dumping Real Madrid down the table. Dortmund rise to 4th
- Only Liverpool have started the new Champions League format with five wins and first-year coach Arne Slot’s team are two points clear of Inter Milan
- The best comeback was at PSV Eindhoven, where the home team trailed Shakhtar Donetsk by two goals in the 87th minute before a 3-2 win was sealed by US forward Ricardo Pepi’s goal deep in stoppage time
LONDON: Liverpool are 100 percent on top of the Champions League after dumping title holders Real Madrid into an almost unbelievable 24th place in the 36-team standings on Wednesday.
No one felt the embarrassment of Madrid’s 2-0 loss at Anfield more than Kylian Mbappe, the superstar added in the offseason by the storied club that also was European champion against Liverpool in the finals of 2022 and 2018.
Mbappe had a penalty saved in the second half and was earlier dumped on his behind by Conor Bradley’s superb tackle in an instant viral moment.
Only Liverpool have started the new Champions League format with five wins and first-year coach Arne Slot’s team are two points clear of Inter Milan. Barcelona are third, trailing Liverpool by three points.
Madrid are, remarkably, with three rounds left just one place above being eliminated. The top eight teams at the end of January go direct to the round of 16 in March, and teams placed from ninth to 24th enter a round of two-leg playoffs in February.
“(This) doesn’t change much, because even with a win it was going to be tough to secure a top-eight finish,” Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti said. ”It was a fair result.”
Monaco missed a chance to go second in the table, giving up a lead playing with 10 men from the 58th minute in a 3-2 loss at home to Benfica. Swiss forward Zeki Amdouni scored the winning goal in the 88th.
Borussia Dortmund, the beaten finalists against Madrid in May, are up to fourth place after beating Dinamo Zagreb 3-0. Champions League standout Jamie Gittens now has four goals in five games, curling a rising shot in the 41st to open the scoring in Croatia.
The best comeback was at PSV Eindhoven, where the home team trailed Shakhtar Donetsk by two goals in the 87th minute before a 3-2 win was sealed by US forward Ricardo Pepi’s goal deep in stoppage time.
US defender Cameron Carter-Vickers scored an embarrassing own goal for Celtic — playing a no-look pass far beyond goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel — in a 1-1 draw with Club Brugge.
“One of those things,” Schmeichel said. “Cam gets pressed and he hasn’t heard me shout that I’m not in (goal).”
Congo teammates Ngal’Ayel Mukau and Silas impressed in wins for Lille and Red Star Belgrade.
Mukau scored twice in 12th-place Lille’s 2-1 win at Bologna and Silas leveled for Red Star in a 5-1 rout of Stuttgart, though he barely celebrated his goal. Silas is on loan with the Serbian champion from Stuttgart.
Aston Villa’s 0-0 draw with Juventus was preserved by an excellent save by Emiliano Martinez, the World Cup-winning Argentina goalkeeper, diving low to push away a header from Francisco Conceiçao.
Bradley beats Mbappe
Liverpool’s stand-in right back Bradley was a standout Wednesday, denying Mbappe at high speed in a signature defensive play in the 32nd.
The 21-year-old Northern Ireland defender, deputizing for fit-again Trent Alexander-Arnold, joined the attack in the 52nd to play a key pass returning the ball to Alexis Mac Allister who scored the opening goal.
After Mbappe’s penalty was pushed away by goalkeeper Caoimhín Kelleher in the 61st, Liverpool star Mo Salah missed with his spot-kick in the 70th, before substitute Cody Gakpo sealed the win with a header in the 77th.
Madrid now have lost three of five games after defeats at Lille and at home to AC Milan. The record 15-time European champions have another tough trip next, at fifth-place Atalanta on Dec. 10. On the same date, Liverpool are at 30th-place Girona and look to be cruising into the round of 16.
“You know how special it is to play against a team that has won the Champions League so many times,” Liverpool coach Slot said of Madrid. “They were a pain for Liverpool for many years too.”
First wins, first points
Red Star Belgrade and Sturm Graz ended four-game losing runs to get their first points and wins.
Red Star rallied against Stuttgart after the German team led in the fifth minute. The 1991 European Cup winner’s goal to level the game in the 12th was scored by on-loan Silas. He held up his hands as if in apology as part of a low-key celebration.
Sturm Graz won 1-0 against Girona, the Spanish newcomers to European competitions. It was the Austrian champions’ first Champions League game since coach Christian Ilzer left to join Hoffenheim.
Mbappe misses penalty as Liverpool exact revenge on Real Madrid
LIVERPOOL: Kylian Mbappe saw a penalty saved as Liverpool beat Real Madrid 2-0 on Wednesday to inflict a third Champions League defeat in five matches on the holders.
Alexis Mac Allister and Cody Gakpo scored the goals in the second half as the Reds maintained their perfect record to return to the top of the table.
Mohamed Salah also fired wide from the spot, but it mattered little as Liverpool secured a 17th win in Arne Slot’s first 19 games in charge.
Slot has already achieved what Jurgen Klopp could not as Liverpool boss by slaying the Spanish giants.
Liverpool had a score to settle with Madrid, who were unbeaten in eight previous meetings between the sides, including Champions League finals against Klopp’s men in 2018 and 2022.
Defeat sends Carlo Ancelotti’s side tumbling down to 24th in the table.
Only the top 24 progress to the knockout stage with the top eight advancing directly to the last 16.
Liverpool are well on course to do just that and the confidence coursing through a side also eight points clear at the top of the Premier League was in evidence throughout in front of a highly-charged Anfield crowd.
Madrid were hamstrung by a lengthy injury list and made the trip to England without Vinicius Junior, Rodrygo, Dani Carvajal, Eder Militao, Aurelien Tchouameni and David Alaba.
Young center-back Raul Asencio has been pressed into action by those absences and he made a vital goal-line clearance on four minutes.
Darwin Nunez was sent in behind the Madrid defense by Salah and after his shot produced a fine save from Thibaut Courtois, Asencio reacted smartly to prevent the rebound bouncing off him and into his own net.
Courtois was Liverpool’s scourge with a man-of-the-match performance in the final two years ago as Madrid prevailed 1-0 in Paris.
The Belgian was at his best again as he blocked another big Nunez chance from point-blank range as the Liverpool pressure built without reward before the break.
Courtois was in sparkling form again at the start of the second period to parry Conor Bradley’s downward header.
But Liverpool were not to be denied as Bradley was this time the provider for Mac Allister, who manufactured the space for a shot into the far corner on 52 minutes.
The visitors were relying on Mbappe for a moment of magic in the absence of Vinicius, but the Frenchman was well-marshalled by his international team-mate Ibrahima Konate and Virgil van Dijk.
His chance to silence his critics arrived on the hour mark when Andy Robertson was harshly adjudged to have tripped Lucas Vazquez inside the area.
Caoimhin Kelleher has excelled in the absence of the injured Alisson Becker and leapt to his left to save Mbappe’s spot-kick.
Salah sparked a furor ahead of the game by declaring his disappointment with Liverpool’s failure to offer him a contract renewal.
The Egyptian has been in sparkling form this season and his pace and trickery fooled Ferland Mendy into a mistimed challenge.
Salah, though, gave Madrid a lifeline by firing his penalty off the outside of the post.
Liverpool had to wait just six more minutes for the cushion of a second goal as substitute Gakpo rose highest from a corner to power a header past Courtois.
Amorim eyes victory in first Man Utd home game to kickstart new era
- The former Sporting Lisbon boss admitted after the draw at the weekend that United would “suffer for a long time” as he puts his stamp on the club
LONDON: Ruben Amorim said struggling Manchester United need a win to kickstart his Old Trafford revolution as he prepares for a “special” first home match against Bodo/Glimt on Thursday.
United had a disappointing 1-1 draw at Ipswich on Sunday in Amorim’s first game in charge since replacing the sacked Erik ten Hag, leaving them 12th in the Premier League table.
On Thursday they face Norwegian side Bodo/Glimt in the Europa League after one win and three draws in their opening four matches in the competition.
“It is said to me that it will be a special time,” Amorim told his pre-match press conference on Wednesday. “I just want to win the game, just to give that happiness to the supporters.
“Before the match it will be like a new sensation but after the whistle it will be one more game and we want to win that match.”
Amorim, who changed United’s formation against Ipswich, said the club needed to feel “momentum.”
“It’s important when you are putting an idea,” he said. “If you win it’s a big help.”
The former Sporting Lisbon boss admitted after the draw at the weekend that United would “suffer for a long time” as he puts his stamp on the club.
And on Wednesday he admitted he did not know how long it would take players to get used to his methods, explaining it was difficult to draw parallels with his previous experiences.
“You can say that this is a different league so it’s harder than in Portugal,” he said. “But I also have more experienced players and all these guys play for national teams.
“They just need to increase their confidence and at the moment I don’t know how to answer that question. I don’t know how long.
“But I will know that with a lot of games without time to train it will be tough for me but it will be tougher for them because they are on the pitch and they will suffer a little bit.
“I will try to help and we have to manage to win some games and try to increase that idea in the team.”
Amorim said United had firepower in their ranks despite their lack of goals this season and that he would try to help out-of-form Marcus Rashford.
“We will try to find the right solution for him, as for the other players,” he said.
“He has to be Marcus, first of all, to try to return to that moment. Then he will have the help of all the staff, all the club and all the fans because he’s a Manchester United boy. But he has to be the first one to really want it.”
Israeli soccer team prepares for closed-door match in Hungary after attacks on fans in Amsterdam
- The team will face off Thursday against Turkiye’s Besiktas in an Europa League match that was relocated to Hungary
- Maccabi Tel Aviv head coach Zarko Lazetic told a news conference on Wednesday that his team was focused on its game, regardless of what tensions may exist elsewhere
DEBRECEN, Hungary: Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team returned to Europe on Wednesday for the first time since its fans were assaulted in the Netherlands earlier this month in attacks that were condemned as antisemitic by authorities in Israel and across Europe.
The team will face off Thursday against Turkiye’s Besiktas in an Europa League match that was relocated to Hungary. The contest at Nagyerdei Stadium in the city of Debrecen will be played without fans due to security concerns following the violence in Amsterdam on Nov. 7 that resulted in five people being treated in hospitals and dozens of detentions.
Maccabi Tel Aviv head coach Zarko Lazetic told a news conference on Wednesday that his team was focused on its game, regardless of what tensions may exist elsewhere.
“It’s not a question for me what happened outside of the stadium. We saw some videos and everything, but we really try to focus on football,” he said. “We’ll see tomorrow what is the effect.”
The violence in Amsterdam came after local authorities banned pro-Palestinian demonstrators from gathering outside the stadium where Maccabi was playing Dutch team Ajax.
A large crowd of Israeli fans chanted anti-Arab slogans on their way to the match, video showed. Afterward, youths on scooters and on foot crisscrossed the city in search of Israeli fans, punching and kicking them, according to Amsterdam’s mayor.
The city’s police commander said the incidents had “an antisemitic character.”
Maccabi press officer Ofer Ronen-Abels said Wednesday the events in Amsterdam “had nothing to do with football.”
Before the assaults, Besiktas had requested its home game against Maccabi, originally scheduled for Istanbul, to be moved to “neutral ground” over security concerns.
The club later said on social media that Hungary was the only country willing to host the match and that Hungarian authorities requested it be played behind closed doors.
Hungary has hosted several home games for Israel’s national team for security reasons since the war in Gaza began.
Maccabi held its final practice session at the Kiryat Shalom training complex in Tel Aviv on Wednesday before departing for Hungary, the team said on its website.
Jeddah set for Fanatec GT World Challenge race
- Anticipated SAL Jeddah Race, which will be held for the first time in the Kingdom on Nov. 29-30, will feature two major motorsport races and cover 1,000 km
- Iconic manufacturers taking part include Porsche, Aston Martin, Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Mercedes AMG, BMW M Sport, Audi Sport and Ford
JEDDAH: Jeddah is all set for the final round of the 2024 Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe on Friday when a 49-car field tackles a six-hour Endurance Cup race at Jeddah Corniche Circuit.
The anticipated SAL Jeddah Race, which will be held for the first time in the Kingdom on Nov. 29-30, will feature two major motorsport races and cover 1,000 km, making it the longest circuit race in Saudi history.
Iconic manufacturers taking part include Porsche, Aston Martin, Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Mercedes AMG, BMW M Sport, Audi Sport and Ford.
The GT4 European Series, supported by RAFA Racing Club, will feature four competitive categories, promising an exciting spectacle for motorsport enthusiasts in Saudi Arabia:
Pro: A showcase for the world’s finest drivers and teams vying for top honors.
Gold: Designed to cultivate and elevate emerging driving talents.
Silver: A competitive platform featuring a mix of amateur and semi-professional drivers.
Bronze: A unique category combining experienced professionals with promising young drivers, offering a valuable learning experience.
Saudi Logistics Services, the official title sponsor for the Jeddah GT Race 2024, announced on Monday the arrival of more than 70 cars from the ports of Barcelona and Valencia in Spain to the port of Jeddah.
The SAL Jeddah GT Race is an endurance racing event that encourages drivers to push their maximum limits and test their stamina, strategy and reliability throughout the intense competition.
The event’s fan zone includes live entertainment and fun activities for families, as well as food festivals.
