Trailing to Ibrahim Al Hassan’s goal, Bento made a tactical switch in the second half which paved the way for Harib Abdalla, Khaled Aldhanhani and Ali Saleh to score as UAE walked away with the three points.
Bento said he opted for his players to focus more on the central areas instead of the flanks and it led to UAE finding more joy in the attacking areas.

“We are happy to achieve our first win and we got an important result against the Qatari team, which will be a great motivation for us in the upcoming matches,” said the Portuguese.

“The win was deserved considering the performance shown by all the players throughout the match, especially in the second half, in which we were the better side.

“In the first half, we suffered in defence but after some (tactical) changes in the second half, we put pressure on the opponents to score three goals and manage to overturn from being behind to a victory.”

Failure to build on Al Hassan’s opener was a disappointment for Marquez Lopez as Qatar suffered a loss on home soil in a competitive match for the first time since losing to Bahrain in the Gulf Cup in January 2023.

However, the AFC Asian Cup™ title-winning head coach is determined to show that this defeat is only a blip and remains confident that Qatar can recover and make the FIFA World Cup 2026.

“The result was not what we hoped after the good start and the one-goal lead,” said Lopez. “We did not succeed in maintaining the advantage in the second half and thus suffered a loss in our first match in the qualifiers.

“The chances in the group are still there and we have nine matches left in the qualifiers, and everything can change in terms of calculations and chances to qualify.

“We aim to make up for this result and get back on track, starting with the next match against DPR Korea (on Tuesday) and I’m confident that we can bounce back from this.”