Abu Dhabi: Al Jazira, the hosts of IPIC Cup, will face Kuwait Club tonight in the second day of the friendly tournament with Abel Braga facing a huge problem regarding the foreign players in his team.
Braga was forced to start the first match against Al Ittifaq of Saudi Arabia with Toni, the only foreign professional as Rozario and Ricardo Oliveira could not take part because of injuries.
Toni was sent off in a controversial decision and four minutes later, his teammate Subait Khater was sent off by the referee for bad conduct.
"We will have solutions to the problem of foreign players by giving the chance to our local players. I do believe this is a good experience for our team because it might also happen to us during the season and it would be good to see how our team fare in this match," Hamad Al Suwaidi, the Al Jazira's Chairman of the Professional Committee in charge of football, told Gulf News yesterday.
"This tournament is originally to prepare the team for the UAE Football League (UFL) and it is not so important for us to win the title, we are playing to provide the chance for the team to prepare and for the young players to gain experience and I do believe that we are achieving both goals.
"We played a good match against Al Ittifaq, one of the best teams in the region, with only nine players for 40 minutes and we succeeded in defending our goal and winning by shootouts. For our second match we will not have the services of two key players and no foreign professional is available to play but we have some good youngsters and local players who can easily do what their coach wants." Al Suwaidi added.
Al Jazira have three points after beating Al Ittifaq 6-4 while Kuwait have also three points after beating Al Orooba 2-0.
The winner tonight will become the leader of the IPIC Cup till the final day when Kuwait face Al Ittifaq and Al Jazira plays against Al Orooba.
