How Sanchez moulded his young turks into champions

Raajiv TripathiDohaQatar’s brilliant young brigade which authored a golden chapter in Continental football history on Friday had patience and precision as the hallmarks of their epochal performance.Al Annabi's great achievement also had a lot to do with their former FC Barcelona former youth coach Felix Sanchez, who deserves to be complimented as much as any other. His belief in the young players, who grew up and graduated under his care and guidance, 'set a tune' too difficult for any of their rivals to match in the UAE. It would also be rather out of place to single out any particular player at this moment. But it may be fairly added that if forwards Almoez Ali, Akram Afif, goalkeeper Saad al Sheeb, defenders Abdelkarim Hassan, Pedro Correia or midfielder Abdelaziz Hatim excelled, it was undoubtedly possible due to the inspirational leadership of Hasan al Haydos, masterful planning and the admirable control over the players by the Spanish tactician.Given the responsibility of shaping the national team worthy of being the FIFA 2022 World Cup hosts, it was quite unfortunate that Sanchez fell short of the nation’s dream last year when Qatar failed to qualify for the 2018 Russia World Cup. It may have eventually silenced all detractors who were thinking about Al Annabi getting a free ride in the 2022 World Cup as hosts. Now the time leading to the FIFA mega event would be more than exciting and worth waiting for.