UAE lose to Venezuela in a friendly

barcelona — A defeat to a team, Venezuela, that is 45 positions above the UAE in the Fifa ranking may be a good lesson for The Whites as their Italian coach Alberto Zaccheroni will now look to redraw training plans for the next two camps at home ahead of the AFC Asia Cup to be held in the UAE from Jan. 5 to Feb. 1, 2019.

In Tokyo, Japan made it three wins out of three under new coach Hajime Moriyasu with a thrilling 4-3 victory over Uruguay in a friendly on Tuesday night in Saitama.

South Korea threw away a two-goal lead and ended up drawing with Panama 2-2 in a friendly in Cheonan.

After rallying to hold Honduras 1-1 in their last friendly in Barcelona, Zaccheroni boys were confident of putting up a good show against the Venezuelans and they did perform somewhat creditably.

The score line didn’t exactly indicate the fight that the UAE team put up and the result could have been different had Omar Abdulrahman not missed a penalty in the 40th minute after Venezuela had caught the UAE defence off guard in the first minute.

But before he missed the spot kick, Venezuela had put The Whites slightly on the back foot with a goal in the first minute of the game in the friendly at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís stadium in Barcelona on Tuesday.

Luis Mago, after being put through by Romulo Otero, slotted home the first goal past Ali Khaseif under the UAE goal.

The teams crossed with the Venezuelans 1-0 ahead.

Two minutes after resumption in the second half, Venezuela doubled their lead when Andrés Ponce hit the net with right footed shot after making his way past two defenders.

The Venezuelans dominated the midfield play with their 4-23-1 formation against 4-3-3 employed by Zaccheroni.

The Italian coach made quite a few substitutions in the second half, including Ahmed Rabia replacing Ismaeil Matar on the stroke of the hour but goal eluded them.

During their first camp, the UAE had lost to Trinidad (2-0) and Tobago in a friendly in Girona. The Whites, however, won 3-0 against Laos 3-0 in another friendly.

The UAE are placed in Group A with Bahrain, India and Thailand in the AFC Asia Cup.