Separated by over 100km, but belonging to the same Emirate, Al Wahda and Al Ain played another derby!

Here again, the expectation is high.

Firstly, because was my first time observing Al Wahda U18’s Team.

Secondly, a derby is always a derby, regardless of the age group or country.

Everyone wants to win.

Specially when someone is playing against the League Leaders, and definitely one of the strongest contenders to win the Emirates Cup of this age – Al Ain.

Therefore, I was curious about the Game’s outcome.

The reality was even more surprising than I was expecting!
I already knew Al Ain’s side, a powerful and talented team, with some tactical nuances that are very interesting, but Al Wahda level really surprised me!

Starting by the home team, Al Wahda was hard to explain at first.

Just by looking at the team, they had some physicality there, which meant that one of the strongest characteristics of Al Ain was going to be matched at this Game.

Then, they started by presenting  a tactical variation within the first 20 minutes, moving from a GK+5+2+3 Formation to a GK+4+2+3+1 when one of the CB’s (#24 – Mohamed Khaled) moved to the double-pivot position as a holding midfielder.

The defenders were all physically powerful, except the right-back, that although not being remarkably tall, was very fast and technically capable.

Then, almost reaching the end of the 1st half, one substitution and another tactical change – the fast Right-Back (#96 – Mohamed Abdulla) is substituted by a Winger (#99 – Yassin Mohamed) , the initially CB that moved up as a holding Midfielder is now moving to right back and the Offensive Midfielder drops to holding Midfielder double-pivot role. with the team starting to attack with the 2 CB’s wide open, providing space for one of the holding midfielder’s (#10 – Mohamed Naser or #5 – Mohamed Abdalsalam) to drop into that space and simulate almost a line of 3 on the build-up phase 1.

Now, these many changes made me think: either the Coach is reacting to the Game’s scenarios and trying to avoid being outnumbered in the centre (where Al Ain was dominating and getting a lot of players involved), or they really prepared different scenarios and were ready for it.

Now, an important disclaimer, I don’t have any inside information or anything similar, and these are only my observations as a spectator.

However, the way the team performed and were able to almost perfectly mitigate the dangerous plays from Al Ain, specially once they establish and got confidence in that strategy, both defensively and offensively, indicates that the team was prepared and ready for this.

Therefore, having a team to navigate between different formations, tactics, systems and strategies within the same match shows the work that is done behind the scenes and the superior tactical awareness that the team holds.

Really, really good!

From the individual behaviors, mainly with the ball, knowing where to move, how to move their body positioning to receive the ball, first touch intentionally directed towards their objective, etc, I was really surprised with the way the Game showed this teams qualities.

Additionally, having in consideration that some of the players were born in 2008 – when this age groups is predominantly played with 2007 players, meaning they are 1 year younger, and they even got one player born in 2009 to play in the 2nd half.

Bright perspectives for this team at Al Wahda, without hesitation!
And really good work done from the Coaches.

On the other side, the super powerful Al Ain.

No surprises here, as this is not the first time I’m watching this team and I knew somehow what to expect.

They added one player, that has a big impact on the team’s defensive stability and build-up capacity, but apart from that, this team is already showing their dominance throughout the Season.

To their normal Tactical Formation on a GK+4+2+3+1, they also added a few tactical offensive nuances that show how this team can be flexible – mainly with the Right-Back (#16 – Theyab Fares) moving ahead to interior zones when attacking, leaving the team in a GK+3+2+5 formation, and the side areas for #25 (Satine Kabi) on the right and #9 (Hazaa Faisal) on the left and creating a diamond shape in the middle with the 2 holding Midfielders (#6 – Joshua and #27 – Gora) having the support of 3 players ahead (#23 – Ziyad; #16 – Theyab and the Striker #7 – Calico Djassi) that moved up and down, creating counter-movements of approaching the player with ball of trying to find the depth behind the defensive line.

I think this element of numerical relationships at the center of the field, with Al Ain trying to get 5 players navigating those areas and Al Wahda merging between 3 and, finally, 4, was the reason behind so many tactical changes.

And well seen and approached from both sides!

Naturally, Al Wahda was only able to prevent more attacking situations because the lines were close, meaning the team was defending compact and aware for the space behind their defensive line.

Again, personal behaviors, body positioning of the defenders, getting them ready to attack the ball or the space.

Now, the most important aspect is that, just in any other strategy or tactical formation, nothing is perfect and may break at any distraction.

And those distractions can be expected when the team is getting tired, with the time passing by.

This happens at top level, where we can see teams dominating others and eventually scoring due to the volume created.

However, at this match, I don’t think this was the case, as we can’t say one team clearly dominated the other.

As a demonstration of this Games’ intensity and level, between minute 60 and 70 2 players (one each side) had to be substituted due to cramps…

Al Ain is a stronger side, but Al Wahda was ready for the match and, at times, dominated the Game.

But they couldn’t score.

In Football, the saying is that “when you don’t score you’re closer to concede”.

And that happened.

Al Ain deserve to win, just as Al Wahda should be proud of their performance.

Good talents on both sides, competitive and (positively) aggressive match, intense.

And for those that can only criticize the physicality in the Game, we need to understand one thing: like it more or less, the Game has become more and more physical (which doesn’t mean that physical capabilities should be prior, or more important than the technical capabilities). 

Therefore, we can also understand that this competitiveness also prepares the most talented to become ready for top-level needs and requirements!

I mean, Bernardo Silva, Joāo Felix, Bruno Fernandes, Joāo Moutinho, Nani, Sílvio, and many, many other players from Portugal, struggled at times during their Youth stages to play at their teams, or to get noticed by the biggest teams.

But they kept playing, growing, developing, learning and eventually the talent spoke louder.

And when it did, they knew how hard would be to compete and were ready!

Therefore, let’s look at the positive side.

Have you been watching some Youth Football in UAE?
What’s your idea of it?

Let’s discuss!