The national team plays two friendly matches in March in preparation for Gulf 27.

Emirates Today learned that the coach of the Romanian national football team, Eulario Cosmin, has developed an integrated plan and program to prepare the team during the next stage, especially with regard to participation in the 27th Gulf Cup, scheduled for the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, from September 23 to October 6, 2026, as the program includes an internal preparation camp, next March, interspersed with two friendly matches, along with two other camps, during the next June and July, noting that the team is also awaiting an important entitlement. In the 2027 Asian Cup finals.

The upcoming camp, next March, comes as the team’s first gathering following its recent participation in the 2025 Arab Cup, which was held in Doha recently, during which it finished in third place equally with the Saudi team, noting that the team had failed to qualify for the 2026 World Cup, even though it was close to achieving this dream.

Since the end of its last participation in the Arab Cup in Doha, the national team is currently witnessing a long period of hiatus due to the lack of any close participation at the present time, but the national team’s players are currently in the ranks of their clubs during their participation, whether local or foreign.

The opportunity now exists for Cosmin, who took over as coach of the national team last April, coming from Sharjah Club with a contract extending until 2027, after the Football Association dismissed the former coach, the Portuguese Paulo Bento, due to the decline in the team’s results, to work on preparing a strong team for the next stage, by addressing the gaps and problems that the team suffered in the last period, which caused its failure to qualify for the World Cup, even though the team’s ranks were filled with a large number of the most prominent players in the league. Emirati.

The team’s technical staff, led by Romanian coach Olario Cosmin, was keen to carry out an integrated technical evaluation of the team’s progress in the past period, to identify the strengths, in order to work to strengthen them, as well as the negative points with the aim of addressing them, and avoiding their recurrence during the next stage.

On the other hand, Emirates Al-Youm learned that Shabab Al-Ahly players, Guilherme da Silva Bala and Youri Cesar (25 years old), will appear with the national team for the first time during the upcoming matches, after each of them fulfilled the legal conditions that enable them to wear the “white” shirt.

Bala and Yuri are considered influential elements in the ranks of the Shabab Al-Ahly team.

Yuri (25 years old), who is good at playing in midfield, played 11 matches in the starting lineup for Shabab Al-Ahly during the ADNOC Professional League competition, scoring four goals and assisting one goal, and the playing minutes he played with his team amounted to 840 minutes.

For his part, Bala (24 years old), who is good at playing in midfield, played 11 starting matches in the league and his playing minutes amounted to 965 minutes, while he scored four goals and assisted one goal.

The presence of Bala and Yuri with the national team during the next stage represents a great addition to the national team’s ranks.

It is noteworthy that Cosmin and his assistant technical staff are keen to attend local competition matches, especially at the level of the ADNOC Professional League, with the aim of closely examining the levels of the players and working to select the most appropriate elements to represent the team during the coming period.