The announcement came with a one-line welcome on X and a graphic reading "until 2030". Dalic, 59, will be presented on Thursday at the association's headquarters in Dubai, where his backroom staff and the preparation programme are due to be confirmed. He succeeds Cosmin Olaroiu, who has since taken charge at Al Jazira, and he arrives as the most accomplished coach the national team has ever appointed.

Dalic led Croatia for almost nine years, the longest and most successful reign in the country's history: 111 matches, 62 wins, the 2018 World Cup final, third place in Qatar in 2022 and a Nations League final the year after. He stepped down in July following this summer's World Cup, on his own terms and with his reputation intact. "I leave with a fulfilled heart, proud of my contribution to the greatest successes of Croatian soccer in history," he said at the time.

The federation framed the hire as part of building a team capable of competing and meeting the aspirations of UAE football.

He also arrives knowing exactly where he is. Dalic managed Al Ain from 2014 to 2017, won the Pro League in 2015 and took the club to the 2016 AFC Champions League final. He understands the league most of his players will come from, the rhythms of the Emirati season and the standing the national team holds here. Al Ain is nicknamed the Garden City, and he has cultivated something there before. He becomes the third Croatian to coach the UAE, after Tomislav Ivic and Srecko Juricic, and joins a federation that has already placed the Under 23s with his compatriot Igor Biscan. The alignment looks deliberate, and it should help.

The fit is the most encouraging part. Dalic's defining skill with Croatia was making a small talent pool play like a settled club side: clear roles, a compact midfield, set-piece discipline and a habit of peaking when tournaments arrive. Four penalty shootouts at World Cups, four wins. The squad he inherits is deeper and more varied than the one he left behind in 2017, broadened by a naturalisation programme that gave the national team six Brazil-born players for last autumn's qualifiers, Caio Lucas among them.

The Croatian doesn't have long to get going either, the Gulf Cup runs from September 23 to October 6 in Saudi Arabia, giving Dalic a competitive tournament within six weeks of taking the job, in a competition the UAE have won twice. The Asian Cup follows in January, also in Saudi Arabia. Two tournaments inside his first five months is an unusual gift for a new international coach: affording him a real opportunity to judge his squad long before the next round of World Cup Qualifiers even appear on the calendar.

The UAE's one World Cup appearance came at Italia 90, and last cycle's campaign, which ended in a playoff against Iraq in November, showed how close this squad already is. The gap between nearly and qualified is exactly the sort of territory where Dalic has spent his career, and the 2030 tournament in Spain, Portugal and Morocco is the target the federation has now put a World Cup finalist in charge of reaching.