Can Comeback Kid Omar Abdulrahman pull off a miracle and lead UAE to World Cup?

“Beware the Asian Cup’s most entertaining player!”, warned Australia’s newspapers as the Socceroos prepared to face the UAE for a place at the 2015 AFC Asian Cup final, the host nation’s publications heaping praise on the Whites’ flamboyant talisman.

After showing glimpses of his ability at the London 2012 Olympics, Omar Abdulrahman had finally blossomed into one of Asia’ finest playmakers by the time the quadrennial continental competition rolled around, his cheeky Panenka in the penalty shootouts quarter-finals win against reigning champions Japan declaring to the continent that this was a man brimming with confidence and fearing none.

Australian defender Trent Sainsbury vowed ahead of the game to “get in Abdulrahman’s face” and duly delivered, while also chipping in with a goal in the 2-0 victory en route to continental glory on home soil.

Disappointment Down Under it was for Abdulrahman and company, as the UAE’s number 10 was pipped to the tournament’s MVP award by the hosts-turned-champions’ own playmaker Massimo Luongo.

Fast-forward seven years and the careers of Abdulrahman and Luongo have taken contrasting yet somehow nearly identical paths. The Emirati swapping sides almost every season with stints at Al-Hilal, Al-Jazira and Shabab Al-Ahli all blighted by injury after injury while national team appearances stopped in 2019 — about the same time his Australian counterpart last appeared in a Socceroos shirt following an injury-ridden career in England’s second and third tier.

When the UAE and Australia locked horns again in the quarter-finals of the 2019 AFC Asian Cup and the Whites triumphed on home soil, taking revenge for the defeat of four years earlier, neither Abdulrahman nor Luongo were on the pitch;