90 minutes separate our first national football team from the dream of reaching the 2026 World Cup for the second time in its history. These 90 minutes are the lifetime of the popular football epic that is being witnessed at Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium at Al Sadd Club tonight against the UAE national team in the second round of the continental playoff qualifiers for the World Cup.
90 minutes of giving and effort inside the green rectangle and inside the stands for one goal, which is victory, obtaining the three points, leading the group, and direct qualification to America, Canada, and Mexico.
The football epic, the decisive confrontation, and the fateful match will begin at eight o’clock this evening at the Championship Stadium in Al Sadd, and Al Annabi will enter the match with a point, compared to 3 points for the Emirates.
The calculations in this fateful confrontation do not need a lot of talk, but it does require one goal to score the Emirati net and raise our team’s tally to 4 points, putting it in the lead and among the teams qualifying for the World Cup.
Victory is the solution and it is the only possibility for our team, even by one goal, while the UAE only needs a draw, which makes the confrontation extremely difficult and intense.
Despite all this, football and sports have proven that playing with one chance is always better than playing with two chances, and playing with one chance, which is winning, makes the focus greater and focused on victory only, away from distraction and thinking about more than one solution.
This possibility makes us expect the scenario of the match, where the Emirati team is expected to resort to a clustered defense, defend with all force, and defend with all its players, in order to close all roads leading to its goal, and then resort to a quick counterattack upon possession of the ball.
This expected scenario from the Emirati team makes Al-Anabi required to do several important technical matters, most notably not insisting on penetrating from deep, and resorting to wings and crosses.
Al-Anabi also needs to perform quickly and move the ball when defending, away from excessive preparation in the middle, so as not to give the Emirati team the opportunity to rebound with all its players, close the spaces, and build a blocking wall in front of the penalty area.
In addition to all of this, Al-Anabi needs to exploit the skills of its players who have the ability to shoot long-range to break the expected UAE defensive bloc.
Adventure with my spear
There is no doubt that the presence of more than one striker today, or more than one spearhead, is an important and strategic matter for Al-Anabi in particular, and there is no alternative to not winning, and this is something that will only be achieved with the presence of a sufficient number of spearheads and scorers, especially Al-Moez Ali, Mohamed Muntari and Ahmed Alaa, according to the coach’s vision of the presence of any of them, but the matter may differ for the Annabi coach, and whether he risks having two spearheads from the first minutes of the match, or in the second half, as he did against the Omani team and pushed Muntari was next to Al-Moez, and Al-Anabi was close to victory after getting chances that he did not get in the first half.
Madibo and the big mission
All the tasks of the Al-Anabi players, without exception, will be important, strong and great. However, the task of Assem Madbou, the midfield captain and the beating heart of Al-Anabi, remains the biggest and most important task, as the midfield led by Madbou tonight will endure great hardship in facing the Emirati midfield with his high physical fitness, willpower, enthusiasm and unparalleled fighting spirit with his two teammates, whether it is Bou Dhaif or Hatem… The midfield’s task today is great, defensively and offensively as well. The more the center was at its peak under the leadership of Madibo, the more this was in Annabi’s favour.
Immune exploitation
It is difficult to predict the formation with which the Spanish coach Lopetegui, coach of Annabi, will start today’s match, as the formation will be consistent with the coach’s point of view and vision for the match and for the opponent as well, but there are expectations that Mohamed Manai will return to the midfield, as the team desperately needs him in today’s match with his offensive capabilities and physical capabilities, and his presence is important for Annabi and his attack is also important to support Afif and Edmilson.
Edmilson and the hope of the masses
In today’s match, Al-Anabi fans are waiting for great brilliance and superiority on the part of Edmilson, the fast and dangerous winger. If he appears at his well-known level, and presents his skills that everyone knows, it will, God willing, be a factor and a card of victory for Al-Anabi. Everyone places on Edmilson a great responsibility in penetrating the UAE defense and in facilitating the task of the spearhead and the attackers and delivering crosses.
Annabi’s goal is safe
Despite the absence of Meshaal Barshim, Al-Anabi’s main goalkeeper, from the Oman match, Mahmoud Abu Nada, who participated in the starting lineup for the first time in his history with Al-Anabi, proved that our team’s goal is safe, whether Barshim returns to participate, or Mahmoud Abu Nada continues in the starting lineup for the second match in a row, and whoever is the goalkeeper who will take charge, he will be required to focus and understand with his teammates, and also be careful of the most prominent cards of the Emirati attack.
Afif and Cosmin
It is certain that the Romanian Eulario Cosmin, the coach of the Emirates, knows Akram Afif, the star of our national team, well, not only because he is one of the best players on the continent, and everyone knows him and everyone always takes him into consideration to limit his danger, but Cosmin was the coach of Al-Sadd and knows all his players as he knows all the Qatari football players, and Cosmin will do everything in his power to stop Afif and limit his danger even if he arrives. It is up to more than two players to monitor him.