Dubai: UAE Handball Association is hoping for a historical showing from the national team as they look to making an impression at this week’s 2014 Incheon Asian Games.
The UAE team made history in January this year when they ended in fourth place at the Asian Men’s Handball Championship in Bahrain to qualify to the 24th World Men’s Handball Championship to be staged in Qatar next year. Bahrain, Iran and Qatar were the other three teams to qualify for the championship to be held from January 15 to February 1.
With confidence high, the UAE team will be looking at taking one match at a time as they are grouped with China, Oman and Asian champions Qatar.
Dr Eisa Al Nuaimi, a former national team player and president of the national body, is well aware of the challenges ahead. He expects his players to ride on this new-found confidence wave and come up with yet another strong performance. “We are up to a big challenge this time too,” Al Nuaimi told Gulf News.
“We have Qatar, China and Oman and none of these are weak teams. But we have prepared well during the summer and I believe our team is up for any challenge from either of these teams. Our task is to keep our focus and take one match at a time,” he added.
During the Asian Championships in Manama in January, Qatar easily got the better of the UAE 31-14. In their second match the UAE lost 26-35 against Japan. However, they did well to win their next three matches - beating Iraq, Kuwait and Oman and qualify to the semi-finals against hosts Bahrain.
“This is what our team is made of. They were down and out after two losses in two matches, but they never gave up. They simply showed they are good enough to win against stronger teams like Kuwait and Oman. And now after the training camps during the summer, most of the players have shown signs of improvement,” Al Nuaimi noted.
The UAE take on China at the Seonhak Handball Gymnasium on September 20 followed by matches against Asian champions Qatar and Oman on the next two days. “Qatar is strong, but we hope to win against China and Oman and advance to the next stage. After that it will be one match at a time,” he said.
