The United Arab Emirates begin their 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign with a home clash against Nepal in Dubai on Thursday.
This week represents the final set of fixtures for Paulo Bento's side before the Asian Cup gets underway in January.
Match preview
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Having led Portugal to two major tournaments and South Korea to the last 16 in Qatar, Bento is back on the international scene now with the UAE, becoming the next high-profile name to manage them after the likes of Bert van Marwijk, Dick Advocaat, Roy Hodgson, Carlos Queiroz, Valery Lobanovskyi, Don Revie and Brazilian World Cup winners Carlos Alberto Parreira and Mario Zagallo.
Bento will be looking to emulate Zagallo, who took UAE to their only previous World Cup when they reached Italia 90 but lost all three group matches.
While not quite having reached the same level as any of those managers in his past adventures, Bento has made a fantastic start with the national side, winning all three friendlies since taking over.
The most notable was his first - a 4-1 win over Costa Rica in neutral Zagreb - before returning home to beat Kuwait and Lebanon last month.
There should be no difficulty adjusting to competitive action, as the UAE are huge favourites to progress past the second stage along with Bahrain in a group which will see the top two move on to the next round.
The World Cup's expansion to 48 teams will benefit teams like the UAE more than almost any other nation across the globe, as AFC have seen their allocation of teams rise from four to eight, with the potential of another in an inter-confederation playoff.
AFC have completely revamped the qualification system from Qatar, but UAE were technically the sixth-best team in Asia in qualifying for 2022, as they lost in a playoff to Australia, who then went into the inter-confederation playoff.
A repeat of that performance this time around will see the UAE qualify automatically, but nations such as Syria, Iraq, Qatar, China, Uzbekistan and Oman will have similar ambitions to take advantage of the additional spots.
Is it extremely unlikely Nepal will make it any further after they surprised Laos in the first stage to make it this far.
Manish Dangi's solitary goal in the second leg in the Laos capital Vientiane earned them just a seventh World Cup qualifying win in their history last month.
Nepal have dropped down the rankings since they were given a bye into this stage for the 2022 qualifiers, where they beat Chinese Taipei twice, but lost all other six matches.
Those two victories, along with two against Timor-Leste in 2014 qualifying and two versus Macau in 2002 qualifying, remain the country's only ever wins at this level.
Vincenzo Annese's side have been in good form recently, as the 13 games since their exit from Asian Cup qualifying have seen them win six and draw a further three - including victory over Pakistan in the South Asian Championship during the summer.
Nepal are well out of their depth here though, and will likely only play for pride in their group games against fellow minnows Yemen, as UAE and Bahrain are heavily fancied to run away with progression.
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Team News
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The entire UAE squad play in the lucrative Pro League at home, including naturalised Brazilians Caio Canedo and Fabio Lima, who should both start.
Their key player is unquestionably Al-Jazira's one-club man Ali Mabkhout, who has scored in his last three club outings and recently reached 250 goals for the club, as well notching 81 international goals in 111 caps.
There are few changes from the squad which was selected last month, but Khaled Ebraheim and Mohammed Jumaa will both miss out this time.
While not quite a clean sweep like their opponents, the vast majority of the Nepal squad play their football domestically, while there are eight uncapped players in the side.
The only exceptions are last month's match-winner Dangi who plays in Thailand, goalkeeper Kiran Chemjong in India and experienced defender Rohit Chand in Indonesia.
Annese will be without defender Ananta Tamang and Awas Lamichhane with injury here, but there is a place for Nisham Hamal, who plays for the Nepalese diaspora club Nepzum FC in Portugal.
United Arab Emirates possible starting lineup:
Eisa; Ibrahim, Al Hammadi, Al-Hashemi, Idrees; Salmeen, Nader; Fabio Lima, Mabkhout, Al Ghassani; Caio
Nepal possible starting lineup:
Chemjong; Shrestha, Chaudhary, Chand, Ar. Bista; Aangdembe, Limbu, Dangi, Rai, An. Bista; Jung Karki
We say: United Arab Emirates 6-0 Nepal
UAE are one of the nations expected to emerge from the shadows and take a qualifying spot given the World Cup's expansion, and they should get off to a comfortable start with a routine win here.
The two nations have only met once, and it came in a 1984 friendly which UAE won 11-0, and a similarly one-sided affair could be on the cards here.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
