Coach Mahdi Ali said he always knew Ahmad Khalil & Co would spur a fightback for the UAE even as they were trailing 2-0 to Uzbekistan in Tashkent on Wednesday night in the final group match of London 2012 Olympic Games qualification.
Deafening silence fell over the city after Khalil's now legendary free-kick and half-volley on 50 and 55 minutes cancelled out earlier efforts from Uzbekistan via Oleg Zataev and Fozil Musaev on 34 and 46 minutes, respectively. Haboosh Saleh, who came on for Khalil with 10 minutes to play, then added a winning third right at the end.
Ali said: "Before the game I told Ahmad [Khalil] that he would score because he has always been very lucky against Uzbekistan when we played them previously in the Asian Games and the Asian Cup.
"I was so happy when I heard that he was coming back to the team especially after his recent injury. He has only trained with us for four days prior to this game and he didn't play in any of the warm-up or friendly matches. I'm so happy for him. I think its now time for him to come back to his full level again."
Explaining how he had also rallied the historic comeback from the sidelines, Ali added: "I told them at half-time 1-0 down: forget about it, you didn't play bad but you can show better — you can match your quality and I'm very confident you can do better in the second half. Forget about everything, forget about the team, the crowd, just play your football." That's what happened in the second half.
Unexpected
"I personally wasn't expecting for Uzbekistan to score two goals at the beginning of the game. But I always had confidence in the [UAE] team and I was always optimistic. These guys have always shown that they will never give up. We shown so many times before that despite being one or two nil down that we can bounce back even if that's in the 90th or 93rd minute."
Ali, who with this successful Olympic qualification bid has now emerged as a frontrunner for the UAE senior team's vacant head coach role, added: "At 2-0 down I was just thinking how to change to three defenders with three strikers to try and get it back."
Ahmad Khalil said of his magic double: "The players helped me score those two goals of course it wasn't me alone. The other players gave me confidence. It was a real team effort. Because I am a striker, because I didn't play through injury recently, I thank God for this game and the players who helped us get this win. We listened to what our coach said and that's why we won this game.
"I'm very happy with this win because I wanted to go to London, before this it was my dream to go to London and now thank God we will go Inshallah."
Match-winner Haboosh Saleh said: "To have scored the winning goal and take my nation to the Olympics for the first time in this last group match is an enormous achievement. Everyone will be celebrating tonight in the UAE and all the people will be together young and old enjoying the success of our team. We dedicate this win to everybody in the UAE, the whole country can celebrate this as one."
