Ajdin Hrustic’s late volley deflected off Ali Salmeen, and the UAE’s Great Hope was dashed. Rodolfo Arruabarrena’s side were beaten 2-1 by Australia at the Ahmad bin Ali Stadium in Al Rayyan on Tuesday, Australia just about doing enough, the perennial World Cup participants thrust to within one match of a fifth successive global finals.
For the UAE, a 32-year wait widens to 36, at least. Another World Cup cycle has come and gone, extinguished not far from where the Netherlands meet Senegal on November 21 to kick off Qatar 2022.
A winter World Cup, the Middle East’s first, will not have another Gulf nation, after all. Instead, either Australia or Peru will snatch the second-to-last of the 32 available slots.
All the way until that point, it felt almost close enough for the UAE to touch. Having not ventured this far into qualification in more than two decades, they were behind and then level and, with six minutes remaining, behind again.