Keizer: We Are Excited and Ready to Fight for Victory against Kalba

Abu Dhabi: Dec. 15, 2021

Coach of the first team, Marcel Keizer, said he is happy his team will return to play competitive and official matches again after one month of training and facing opponents in friendly games, and insisted his team is very capable of producing a strong performance on Thursday night against Ittihad Kalba in the away leg of the UAE Pro League Cup.

“We are very happy and excited about returning to the atmosphere of competitive and official football matches,” said the Dutch coach during the pre-game press conference. “After one month of training and playing friendly games everyone in the team is eager now to play official games. We worked hard during the international break to improve our performance, offensively and defensively, and we are happy and satisfied with the rates of hard work and commitment the players showed during the training sessions, and have all the confidence in them to produce a very good performance against Ittihad Kalba”.

“National team players will be assessed closely before deciding on starting with them on Thursday night or not, and the same will apply on Khalfan Mubarak, who joined us recently in the training pitch after recovering from his muscular injury. The rest of players are fit and ready, physically and mentally, to fight for victory against Ittihad, without making the mistake of thinking about the return match next January”.

“Kalba is a very good team, and they showed that clearly when they got 4 points from 2 difficult games against Al Nasr and Shabab Al Ahli. They are strong and fast and very disciplined in defense, and we are expecting a tough and complicated game against them, but we have all the confidence in the world about our chances of returning from there with a victory. We want to go as far as possible in this competition and all the tournaments of this season, but it's very early to discuss the possibilities of lifting trophies now”.