The UAE Football Association announced the dismissal of Portuguese coach Paulo Bento, the head coach of our national team, and the assistant coaching staff this morning, just hours after a difficult 2-1 victory over the North Korean team in their match at Prince Faisal bin Fahd Stadium in Riyadh last night, as part of the eighth round of the first group in the third round of the Asian qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup.
Pinto had officially announced his assumption of the responsibility of leading the national first team for a period of 3 years on July 9, 2023, succeeding the Argentine coach Rodolfo Arruabarrena, after previously leading the national teams of Portugal and South Korea to the World Cup finals in 2014 and 2022.
However, Pinto received a lot of criticism from both football experts in the country and the sports community due to poor results and performance in many matches, the latest being against North Korea, who are in last place in the first group of the third stage qualifiers with only two points.
It is worth mentioning that Iran maintained its lead in the group standings with 20 points from 8 matches and secured qualification to the World Cup after the seventh round, compared to 17 points for Uzbekistan, 13 for the UAE, 10 for Qatar, 6 for Kyrgyzstan, and 2 for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The penultimate ninth round of the first group matches is scheduled to take place on June 5, 2025, where our national team will face its guest, the Uzbekistan national team, Qatar will meet Iran, and North Korea will face Kyrgyzstan.
