United Arab Emirates vs North Korea Prediction: North Korea drew with Qatar

United Arab Emirates will welcome North Korea at Hazza Bin Zayed Stadium in Game Week 4 of the FIFA World Cup Asian Qualifiers. North Korea drew with Qatar in the last game. Who will come out on top after 90 minutes?

United Arab Emirates Form

United Arab Emirates to open the third round of AFC qualifying for the 2026 tournament in September, facing the two teams of the six-team group which took part in the last edition of the World Cup held in 2022. The hosts collected respectable three points from the matches against Qatar and Iran. The big chance for Al Abyad during the international break was when they played on September 5 at Ahmad bin Ali Stadium in Ar-Rayyan, where they clinched a 3-1 win over the Asian Cup champions. Their matches were through Harib Abdalla Suhail, Khaled Aldhanhani, and substitute Ali Saleh. All three of UAE's goal scorers currently play in the top tier of UAE football, with defender MacKenzie Hunt from Fleetwood Town in the EFL also in the team. Three points from the first two challenging fixtures sees UAE enter October's international schedule in third place behind Uzbekistan and Iran. Even though Group A is chock-full of giants, UAE can still be optimistic about reaching the second edition of the World Cup after their first experience in Italia 1990, where they ended as the last in their group, losing all three games.

United Arab Emirates Expected Starting XI

Eisa; Aldhanhani, Al Hammadi, Autonne, Idrees; Nader, Suhail, Hamad, Al Zaabi, Saleh; Caio

North Korea form

North Korea is now hungry for action in the North American tournament after missing two years, hoping to return to the international limelight for the first time since the 2010 South Africa World Cup after withdrawing from qualification for this year's World Cup in Qatar. The new structure in 48 teams will mean more qualification for the AFC automatically, so North Korea may see this as their opportunity to become the country for the third time to qualify for the final round of World Cup finals. Since they qualified for the finals in 1966, conducted in England, they are going to face strong competition from the third round, group A, as they are trailing by five points behind a second-placed Iran and could not win any of their first two qualification matches. North Korea, though, did come out to rescue the game with a draw against Qatar in their last game, but from being reduced to 10 men in the first minutes of the match. Except for a few, most North Korean players play in the domestic league, and among them some have experience abroad, including striker Kwang-Song Han who played with Italian clubs Juventus and Cagliari in the past.

North Korea Likely Starting XI

Ju-Hyok; Ok-Chol, Kum-Song, Yu-Song, Pom-Hyok; Chung-Song, Kuk-Bom, Kuk-Chol K, Il-Song; Hwang-Song, Jo-Guk

United Arab Emirates vs North Korea Expert Picks

UAE must be as confident, entering the game against North Korea tonight at Hazza Bin Zayed Stadium, especially after its fine show against Iran in the last match. North Korea had a hard time creating too many scoring chances in its match against Uzbekistan in September, and we expect them to have the same kinds of troubles in Al Ain tonight.