Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Abu Dhabi: UAE coach Rashed Amir Al Bedwawi was left lamenting what he considered to be the harsh sending off of midfielder Sultan Al Shamsi as the FIFA U-17 World Cup 2013 hosts crashed to a 2-1 defeat to Honduras in their opening Group A fixture on Thursday.
The UAE were reduced to ten men in the 26th minute, just six minutes after Fredy Medina given Honduras the lead at the Mohammad Bin Zayed Stadium, when Al Shamsi was shown a straight red by Italian referee Gianluca Rocchi for a robust challenge on Kevin Alvarez.
Although the hosts drew level in the 33rd minute through Khaled Khalfan, Honduras were able to capitalise on their extra-man as Brayan Velasquez took advantage of a tiring UAE defence to fire home Honduras’ winner with four minutes of the match remaining.
“In my opinion our player didn’t deserve a red card. It was a foul but a yellow at most,” UAE daily the National quoted Al Bedwawi as saying.
“We had a nice start. We created a few early scoring chances and missed at least two opportunities during that period, and then the red card, all this upset our game plan.
“We expected to win the first game but that didn’t happen. Now we have to take the difficult path playing Brazil in the next match. Yes, they are very strong team but we need to win the next two to have any chance of going beyond the group stage.”