At the Asian Cup, both the United Arab Emirates and Iraq will seek to end their tournament's on a high note, the pair saw their continental glory end in the semi-finals, and will now fight it out in the third place play-off.

Mahdi Ali's side trained Thursday ahead of the consolation match. The UAE fell 2-0 to the host Australia in the semi-finals. Emirati striker Ali Mabkhout has more motivation than most. The Al Jazira frontman has already grabbed four goals, placing him joint top of the scoring charts alongside Jordan's Hamza Aldaradreh. Another goal against Iraq would probably earn him the tournament's Golden Boot. UAE and Iraq have met twice before in the Asian Cup, with each team winning once. A win will see the UAE achieve their best ever finish at the tournament.

"I think when we came to this competition, our main goal was to be in the semi-final and that was achieved. We are happy with what we achieved up to now. It would be great to play in the final but we tried our best, we worked very hard to achieve this goal and it didn't happen. It's not the end of the world, we have to think again and we have to work harder for the future," Ali says.

Lions of Mesopotamia eye podium finish

Iraq were also busy training for the match at Hunter Stadium in Newcastle. Head coach Radhi Shenaishil has enjoyed remarkable success in this Asian Cup, and brought his side to the last four again after they won their first title in 2007. Although the Lions of Mesopotamia were beaten by South Korea 2-nil in the semi-finals. The winner of the third place play-off will get a higher seeding for World Cup qualifiers. Iraq have a good record against UAE having won eight of their 22 meetings, however they have been on the losing side in the past two encounters. Their most recent clash, a two-nil defeat to the Emiratis in the Gulf Cup final in November.

"Iraqi football went through a lot of problems especially after 2007. We came together as a team after a very short period. We are very happy with the situation on our team now. Our main goal was to get to the final to achieve something for Iraq. We couldn't achieve that, we are still in this competition, we are still trying to achieve something for our country. Hopefully we can work together in the future to bring joy to our people," says Ahmad Ibrahim, Iraq defender.

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