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Dubai: The UAE beach soccer team won the silver medal in the first-ever Arab beach soccer championships held at Hurghada (Marsa Alam city) at the Red sea coast in Egypt from July 1- 7.
UAE lost 5-3 in the final to Libya. Rami Abdullah scored two goals for UAE and Bakhit Sa'ad hit one, while Abdul Qader Al Idreesy scored a hattrick for Libya with Hamdi Abdullah and Basim Beshir scoring the other two.
Hosts Egypt won the bronze medal after beating Oman 8-2 in the third place play-off.
Libya surprised the UAE to take a 4-0 lead. UAE, led by skipper Sa'ad, fought back in the second and third sessions to score thrice to reduce the defecit. However, the Libyans scored the fifth to seal victory.
"We showed good performance in all the matches. Most of the beach soccer experts praised our game and felt that we were the only consistent team throughout the tournament," said the UAE team manager Badr Hareb after the final.
Lapse of concentration
Hareb said that the players lost concentration at the beginning early on. "It resulted in Lybia leading 4-0. We fought hard to make it 4-3, but were unlucky to miss several sitters which could have made us level the score," he said.
The UAE team manager said the Arab tournament was a very good preparation for the World Cup finals in France next week. "The mistakes committed by our players during the Arab tournament will be corrected in the coming days. The event gave us a good chance to point out the drawbacks before taking part in the World Cup finals in Marseille," Hareb said.
The UAE team now leaves for Milan for a short training camp before leaving for Marseille.
UAE are clubbed in Group C along with Cameroon, Argentina and Russia.
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