TheUnited Arab Emirates national football team (Arabic:منتخب الإمَارَاتُ الْعَرَبِيَّةُ الْمُتَّحِدَة لِكُرَّةُ الْقَدَم) representsUnited Arab Emirates in men's internationalfootball and serves under the auspices of the country'sFootball Association.
The first match of the team was played on 17 March 1972 againstQatar atPrince Faisal bin Fahd Stadium and won with the only goal scored by Ahmed Chowbi. Then, the team faced three other Arabian countries, losing 4–0 and 7–0 toSaudi Arabia andKuwait respectively and beatingBahrain 3 to nothing. After participating in fourGulf Cup tournaments since 1972, United Arab Emirates (UAE) hosted the1982 edition. It again finished third as did in the two previous tournaments.
In1980, United Arab Emirates first-time qualified for theAFC Asian Cup which was held inKuwait and were drawn with eventual winners, Kuwait, runner-upSouth Korea,Malaysia andQatar in Group B. It drew 1–1 with Kuwait and lost the three other matches and finished in fifth place in the group and ninth (out of ten teams) overall. It also qualified for the next two tournaments,1984 inSingapore and1988 inQatar and was again eliminated in the group stages in both. Its first victory of the tournament occurred againstIndia on 7 December 1984, under managerHeshmat Mohajerani.
In 1984, Mohajerani resigned and was replaced withCarlos Alberto Parreira. Parreira led the team at the 1988 Asian Cup and left his position after the tournament. He was succeeded byMário Zagallo. Zagallo led the team to the qualification for the1990 FIFA World Cup inItaly. However, Zagallo resigned before the tournament and Parreira returned. The team finished fourth at the 1990 World Cup's final tournament with no points, scoring two goals and conceding 11 goals. The journey was put into a 2016 documentary titledLights of Rome.[3] After the tournament, Parreira was sacked.
At the1992 and1996 AFC Asian Cups, United Arab Emirates finished fourth and second respectively for the first times. United Arab Emirates appeared in the1997 FIFA Confederations Cup after being awarded a spot because Saudi Arabia was hosting the games.
After hiring foreign coaches, in 2012, United Arab Emirates appointed theOlympic team coachMahdi Ali as the manager of the senior team. Ali began creating a squad inviting players that he had worked with at the youth level. He led the Emirates to their secondArabian Gulf Cup title in2013. At the2015 AFC Asian Cup, United Arab Emirates defeated Qatar 4–1 and Bahrain 2–1 and lost to Iran by a goal. As group runner-up, it faced the defending championsJapan in the quarter-final and earned a victory on penalties to advance to the last four. In the semi-finals, it lost 2–0 to the hostAustralia. In the third-place play-off, it beatIraq 3–2. United Arab Emirates qualified through the2018 FIFA World Cup qualification where it finished fourth inGroup B thus failing to qualify for the2018 FIFA World Cup.Ahmed Khalil was a top scorer in the qualification. Around this time Mahdi Ali resigned from his position.[4]
United Arab Emirates then hosted the2019 AFC Asian Cup, this marked the second time they hosted anAFC Asian Cup. The team had ItalianAlberto Zaccheroni as their coach. In the AFC Asian Cup tournament, UAE proceeded to the quarter-finals where it scored its first-ever goal againstAustralia to gain its first-ever win against this opponent.[5] The semi-finals was between the host and Qatar.[6] Some audiences threw footwear in the pitch after Qatar scored its second goal. UAE lost 0–4 marking its first defeat to Qatar since 2001.
United Arab Emirates joined thesecond round of 2022 World Cup qualifiers and was placed with all-outSoutheast Asian opponents. The team had already appointed theDutch guiderBert van Marwijk. Bert was sacked after his start undergoing two away losses to Thailand and Vietnam in the qualifiers along his group stage exit in the24th Arabian Gulf Cup.[7] After this, the Emirates decided to naturalize ArgentineSebastián Tagliabúe, BrazilianCaio Canedo Corrêa andFábio Virginio de Lima, the three South American players, having never done so since the foundation of the national team.[8] The team then experienced a period of coaching instabilities, with three different coaches, before van Marwijk resumed his duty due to crisis in option. With theCOVID-19 pandemic however, the AFC decided the remaining games of the second round would be played in one country,[9][10] and with the UAE chosen to host Group G, they were able to utilize the home-field advantage as the host nation, ultimately u-turned the earlier misery into four consecutive wins to break through into thethird round, where they faced its neighbours and the powerhousesIran andSouth Korea.[11] In the third round, the UAE failed to produce a promising performance after winning just one out of six first games, a 1–0 away win over Lebanon, drew three and lost two, adding with the UAE's below average performance in the2021 FIFA Arab Cup despite reaching the quarter-finals, that was enough to sack the Dutch manager van Marwijk yet again.[12][13][14] After inconsistency in performance, the UAE appointed Argentine managerRodolfo Arruabarrena as coach, and the team's result improved, winning two out of four games, notably an impressive 1–0 home win over already-qualified South Korea, to reach thefourth round, increased hope for the country to qualify for the first-ever World Cup since 1990, where they would face the old foe Australia, whom the UAE defeated in the latest meeting.[15] However, the UAE was unable to utilise their geographical advantage in the playoff in neighbouring Qatar, losing 1–2 to Australia by a thunderous strike at 84' byAjdin Hrustic to deny the UAE's its potential second appearance; they later stunned South America's rising powerPeru to qualify for the edition.[16]
The rivalry with Qatar is a competitive one in theArabian Gulf Cup meeting on multiple occasions. Due to theQatar diplomatic crisis, increasing tensions had been witnessed, with the captain of UAE under-19 youth team refused to shake hands with Qatar's youth captain in2018 AFC U-19 Championship held in Indonesia; in this tournament, the UAE beat Qatar 2–1 but still crashed out from the group stage while Qatar would recover to qualify for the2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup.[18] As of 2020, Qatar and UAE have played 31 official matches, most of which was held competitively in theArabian Gulf Cup, it started off with the United Arab Emirates beating Qatar 1–0. They only played 2 friendly games and the last friendly was held in 2011 which ended with an Emirati victory. In the 2019 AFC Asian Cup, hosted by the UAE, Qatar overran the UAE for the first time since 2001 with the result 4–0, with heavy tensions and violence occurred between two and Emirati supporters cheering anti-Qatari chants.[19] During the2026 FIFA World Cup qualification fourth round fixture between the two nations, riots broke out as Emirati fans invaded the pitch while throwing plastic bottles and footwear after Qatar scored a goal, Qatar would win the match 2–1 and secure a qualification to the2026 FIFA World Cup while the UAE would qualify for the fifth round instead.[20][21]
Another major rival the UAE takes on Arabian Gulf Cup many times, the two teams have met in the AFC Asian Cup twice, first in the semi-finals of the 1992 edition which ended in a Saudi victory and second in the final of the 1996 edition in which UAE hosted, the game ended in a goalless draw which meant the game had to be decided in penalties, the game ended with Saudi Arabia taking home their 3rd title with the penalty scoreline being 4–2, this remains the only time the Emirates qualified for the final meanwhile this would also be the last time the Saudis would win an Asian Cup as they would lose the next two finals they qualified for in 2000 and 2007. When the countries meet in qualifier matches, the matchup has been nicknamed "clash of titans" as both countries have been some of the more successful teams in the Arabian Peninsula.[22]
The UAE's traditional home kit is all-white with some red trim while their away kit is all-red with some white trim, in 2019, the away colors were black for the first time in addition, there were some green trim.
The United Arab Emirates is known by supporters and the media asAl-Abyad, meaning The Whites which reference to their white jersey and alsoEyalZayed which means Zayed's sons.
In October 2012, theAsian Football Confederation official website published an article about the UAE national team's campaign to qualify for the 2015 AFC Asian Cup, in which the team was referred to using the racial slur "sand monkey". This was the indirect result of vandalism of theWikipedia article on the team, and the AFC was forced to apologise.[24]
In recent years, particularly after2019, the United Arab Emirates began granting citizenship to football players on a wider scale, following a model seen in countries such as Qatar and benefiting from FIFA's more relaxedeligibility criteria. Prior to this period, the presence of naturalized players in the Emirati national setup had been relatively rare, withOmar Abdulrahman being a notable exception. The pace of naturalization subsequently increased, largely on the basis of the five-year residency requirement. Among the first high-profile cases wereSebastián Tagliabué of Al Wahda, andFábio Lima andCaio Canedo of Al Wasl, who all received Emirati citizenship in early 2020. By March 2025, the national team had included twelve naturalized players in its squad.[32]
