UAE come up short against Uruguay

UAE took the mighty Uruguay by storm in the first half but failed to maintain the tempo as Bologna midfielder Gaston Ramirez and Nicolas Lodeiro scored in the 41st and 55th minutes respectively to cancel out Ismaeil Matar’s deserved 22nd minute lead.

Uruguay’s Martin Campana emerged as the first-half hero as he saved strings of UAE attacks except a cool finish from Matar. Midfielder Omar Abdulrahman played a perfect through-ball which split the defence, allowing Matar to finish expertly past Campana.

A brilliantly taken free-kick from Ramirez in the 41st minute provided Uruguay a lucky break and tactical changes from Uruguay coach Oscar Tabarez ensured that Lodeiro was well placed to score the winner 10 minutes into the second half.

"I was very keen to go in at half-time with a 1-0 lead but this is football. I think in the second half there was a second mistake and they scored the second goal,” the UAE coach Mahdi Ali told reporters.

“After that we did not see many dangerous chances for Uruguay."

Ali saw many positives in the defeat as UAE were in total control over the South Americans in the first half.

“For us we will play a better game in the next game,” he said. “We respect Great Britain. They have a very good team and I know that we are going to play the host team and the stadium will be very crowded.”

Even Uruguay goal-scorer Lodeiro was full of praises for the Emiratis.

“The Emiratis took us by surprise a bit, to tell you the truth,” said Lodeiro. “We knew they were a team that played good football and were tactically very disciplined, as well as using the ball very well. But even so they still caught us a bit cold.”

Group A Table