UAE Beach Soccer Team Wins Asian Qualifying Championship for World Beach Games

DUBAI, June 1, 2020 / WAM / Waleed Al-Mohammadi, captain of the UAE beach soccer team, considered that winning the Asian Qualifying Championship for the World Beach Games is one of the important sporting achievements in the field of beach soccer in the UAE.
The UAE national team won the title of the Asian qualifiers, which were held last week in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after defeating Iran in the final match, in the tournament that brought together 6 strong Asian teams.
Al-Mohammadi said in his statements: “Winning the Asian Qualifiers title is one of the biggest sporting achievements in the field of beach soccer in the UAE, due to the difficulty of competition between the participating teams, and the tournament system in which the qualifiers were held.”
He explained that the Beach Games are held every 4 years, and in the last edition that was held in Qatar in 2019, the AFC nominated the participating teams in the Games based on their classification without qualifiers, but in the current version the system changed and qualifiers were held among a group of the strongest teams in the continent.
He pointed out that the holding of the Beach Games every 4 years gives its qualifiers great importance and a more competitive level than the tournaments that are held every two years, making them comparable to the qualifiers for the world championships.
He said: “The tournament system put us in front of a great responsibility and commitment to the need to develop from one match to another, especially since losing any match would have meant bidding farewell to the qualifiers directly, and facing teams such as Oman, the third Asian qualifier for the World Cup, in the first match in the quarter-finals, which embodies the magnitude of responsibility and commitment, in addition to To face other strong teams such as Saudi Arabia and Japan, the runners-up of the world champion in 2021, and Iran, the Asian champion in the last edition of 2023.
Bearing in mind that these teams were highly prepared and had the ambition to reserve one of the two qualified seats for the Beach Games.
And the captain of the UAE national team considered that the achievement achieved in the Asian qualifiers will serve as an incentive to continue victories in the Beach Games.
He said: “What we have achieved in the qualifiers makes us aspire to something greater, because our recent victory is an affirmation of our position and capabilities and will be an incentive for us to achieve a medal in the World Games, especially if we treat each match as a final and with the same focus and mentality of the Asian qualifiers.”
Al-Mohammadi explained that the national team will start its preparation stage, starting next Monday, when the team will gather, and a group of professional players in Europe will join, which supports our chances in the next stage.