Vietname’s rival receives bad news ahead of the callup

To prepare for the 2022 World Cup qualifier, new coach Jorge Luis Pinto has made a list of 28 players who will leave for Serbia to train.

However, before the departure on Aug 5, the Colombian coach received bad news that the Caio Canedo is positive for Covid-19. It is not clear if Pinto will call a replacement or not, but the UAE has started to summon up on August 3.

The fact that Canedo is positive for Covid-19 does not affect the UAE's training plan because the Brazilian citizen striker has tested it before the callup so there is no risk of infection for other players. In addition to Canedo, the UAE also has two other naturalized players, Sebastian Tagliabue (Argentinian) and Fabio de Lima (Brazilian descent).

In the list of 28 players, coach Pinto calls 4 new players up. This was controversial when he was determined not to call veterans and give opportunities to naturalized players. Tagliabue is rated as the best naturalized striker in the UAE league when scoring 105 goals in 135 games for Al Wasl.

Pinto is expected to find the player sharing task with striker Ali Mabkout and midfielder Omar Abdulrahman, who was neutralized by Tuan Anh on My Dinh Stadium.

After this training, Mr. Pinto will close the list of 24-25 players for the 2022 World Cup qualifiers.

It is expected that in October and November, the UAE will complete 4 matches of the qualifying match with Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the last match against Vietnam. This is most likely a fight to win tickets to the final qualifying round. Currently this team is ranked 4th in the rankings.