Dubai United find goals as Pirlo seeks a tighter defence

Season retrospective covering 15 August to 10 September 2026

Dubai United had already discovered how quickly a competitive evening could turn against them when Shabab Al Ahli arrived at Al Maktoum Stadium on 10 September. Their first appearance in the Pro League had ended in a heavy defeat to Al Wasl, and their most recent match had brought another four goals conceded at Sharjah. Holding Shabab Al Ahli to one therefore offered Andrea Pirlo something useful, even though his team had briefly been in a position to win.

The draw completed an eventful introduction to the highest level of UAE football. United had seven points after five matches, with two victories, two defeats and a draw. They had scored thirteen goals and conceded thirteen. Those totals described a team capable of troubling established opponents while still learning how to protect itself. The points gave the opening month substance; the goals against made clear why Pirlo kept returning to the need for better defensive balance.

Promotion had been secured in May, when a goalless draw against Al Arabi took United to 57 points with two rounds of the First Division season remaining. For a club founded in September 2022, reaching the Pro League was an unusually quick change in circumstances. The First Division is the second tier of the national game. Moving beyond it meant measuring the same ambition against opponents accustomed to the demands of the country’s leading competition.

The first lesson came at Zabeel Stadium on 15 August. Al Wasl won 5 to 1, although the final margin left little trace of the period in which United had kept the match level. Adeel Alchadli scored the club’s first Pro League goal in the seventeenth minute after United had conceded early. Pirlo’s response afterwards concentrated on the reaction to Al Wasl’s second goal and his side’s failure to remain composed for the rest of the game. Competing for a passage of play had proved insufficient.

United answered that disappointment at Bani Yas eight days later. Willy Semedo converted an early penalty, Mustapha Name added a header after the interval and Semedo scored again to establish a three goal lead. United eventually won 3 to 2, collecting their first points in the competition. The result mattered because an opening defeat had been followed promptly by a victory, giving the players evidence that their attacking work could bring a return at the new level.

There was a warning within that win. Bani Yas scored twice in quick succession late in the second half, reducing an apparently comfortable lead to a single goal. United held on, but the match had become much harder to finish than it needed to be. The value of the three points did not erase the questions raised by that closing period. For Pirlo, the task was to preserve the threat that had created the lead while reducing the opportunities offered to an opponent trying to recover.

The next victory showed why that attacking threat was worth preserving. United beat Kalba 4 to 1 at Al Maktoum Stadium after a goalless first half. Shavy Babicka scored twice after coming on, while Semedo and Alemhdi Maouhoub also found the net. The opening goal did not arrive until the sixty ninth minute. United had been able to change the match through their replacements and turn a level score into a clear advantage without needing the evening to begin perfectly.

Pirlo’s explanation of the Kalba result gave a little more shape to the numbers. In comments carried by the club, he credited the preparation for the visitors’ defensive system and the contribution of the substitutes. He also noted that several arrivals were still building fitness and understanding. Those observations help explain why the opening weeks could contain such uneven passages. A newly assembled group was learning its responsibilities while the competition was already requiring results, leaving the coach to improve the team during matches as well as between them.

Sharjah then demonstrated the cost of leaving that work unfinished. United lost 4 to 3 on 5 September, despite answering setbacks and scoring enough goals to win many other matches. Alchadli was on target again and Anis Karimi scored twice. A late penalty settled the contest. Pirlo challenged aspects of the officiating afterwards, but his own assessment also acknowledged the number of goals United had conceded across their first four games. The result could be disappointing without the wider defensive concern becoming any less relevant.

That made the following meeting with Shabab Al Ahli a useful comparison. United reached the interval without conceding and took the lead in the fifty eighth minute, when Babicka supplied Maouhoub. Saeid Ezatolahi’s penalty brought the visitors level in the seventy fourth minute, and the match ended 1 to 1. United finished the evening seventh in the table. That position belongs to the September snapshot, but the performance offered evidence of a team beginning to manage a strong opponent more carefully.

Pirlo described a change to the pressing after the match, with United’s wide players asked to put pressure on the opposing central defenders and limit passes through the middle. It was a specific adjustment to the threat in front of them, rather than a claim that all the earlier problems had been solved. His emphasis on defending collectively was equally important. A lower total of goals conceded would require useful work from the players further forward as well as those closest to their own penalty area.

For Dubai residents, there is also a local club taking shape around those results. United are based in Dubai Sports City and operate an academy alongside the senior side, whose September meeting with Shabab Al Ahli was played at Al Maktoum Stadium. That distinction between a club’s base and the venue of a particular fixture is worth knowing before heading to a match. Following United means watching a young organisation adapt as well as assessing the familiar figure on the touchline. Promotion has made its football more visible while increasing the demands on the people running it.

Five games were too few to establish how comfortably United would manage an entire Pro League season. They were enough to move the conversation beyond the fact of promotion. The newcomers had recovered from a difficult debut, won successive matches and taken a point from Shabab Al Ahli. They had also conceded in every league appearance. The first month left Pirlo with useful attacking options and a clear priority: make those contributions worth more by giving opponents fewer ways back into a game.