Abu Dhabi heats up

Now that my jetlag has subsided a bit, I've been able to acclimatise and get into the swing of things. I apologise for my rookie mistake in my last post, stating that the All Whites played Italy in the Confederations Cup!

The great Fifa juggernaut has been rolling into motion here in Abu Dhabi, as the Club World Cup draws closer to kicking off. The buzz of activity around the training ground, and the increased media interest has been noticeable during the last day or so.

The team has been training well in the warm conditions, and have a night training session tonight to acclimatise themselves for Wednedsay night's match. Security here is as heavy as ever, with police escorts the order of the day for any activity.

Fifa has given the club a couple of liaison officers to help with the day-to-day coordination, and as it turns out, one of them is actually a member of the Lebanese national women's team and she took part in training with the guys yesterday! The City camp received their 40-ball allocation of Adidas's new World Cup balls and wasted no time in putting them to the test.

Auckland City's opponents in the opening match are Al Ahli, who are based in Dubai. The way the tournament format works is that the league champions of the host nation play the Oceania qualifyers in a preliminary qualifying match, with the winner going through to take part in the tournament proper. For those of you who can remember, this is the same Al Ahli that had a training ground brawl with Chelsea in a friendly match earlier this year.

We managed to catch Al Ahli's last match before the tournament on Saturday night, where they grabbed a win in a league match. However, their "superstar" player - a Brazilian who goes by the name of Bare (pronounced Bar A) - was injured and is now a major doubt for Wednesday night's match.

I was lucky enough to go to a Fifa Press Conference last night and get a good look at the Club World Cup trophy.There was also some pre-match reaction from the coaches and captains of both sides, with the Al Ahli coach conceding that he didn't really know anything about the Auckland City side. Auckland coach Paul Posa is bullish that the side can get a result, and told the media throng that he was hoping to "spoil their party".

Given that the club has amateur status, the consensus locally is that the side doesn't stand much of a chance. But though the local population seems confident, the Al Ahli coach said: "They will be very organised, very fit and will play well as a team. I think it will not be an easy match."

There's a lot of goodwill towards the New Zealanders here, and a lot of the Fifa employees are British so there's been plenty of banter around the training ground. There are a surprising number of New Zealanders involved in the tournament in some way. I met one chap yesterday who is working for Fifa's marketing team, and another who is going to be dressing in the mascot's uniform for the tournament matches.

The players have most of the day off today, with evening training sessions the order of the day for the next few days leading up to the match. I'll post back tomorrow with another update.

Don't forget, I'm also uploading video segments as time permits to www.aucklandcityfc.com

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Dr Evil   #1   09:42 am Dec 08 2009

Interesting stuff - wish I was there!

I hope for NZ Football's sake that Auckland can get a credible result. Anyone know the likelihood of that?

AJ   #2   02:31 pm Dec 08 2009

That Lebanese bird looks well fit

Trevor   #3   04:18 pm Dec 08 2009

...and why is James Pritchett doing baby circles ?

Ryan   #4   04:14 am Dec 09 2009

That girl is fine. She should do half-time match analysis at Phoenix games.

Kiwi equivalent of Melanie McGlaughlin.

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