Almost 400 professional footballers from five international teams and seven leading club sides are using Zayed Sports City in the capital to stay at the top of their game during the winter months.
The players – from top sides such as Wolfsburg and Hamburg from Germany’s Bundesliga and Newcastle United from England’s Premier League – have been taking part in training camps at the state-of-the-art facilities.
Zayed Sports City has been a destination for football teams since 2010 and has played host to numerous training sessions and friendlies since then, including Brazil against Iran aswell as a match between the UAE national team against Manchester City. The number of pitches at the facility has increased to 16 over the last few years to cope with demand from teams keen to train away from poor weather conditions, but this year has seen the biggest ever response.
Among those welcomed to the UAE capital are the national teams from Sweden, Norway, Poland, Iceland and Moldova as well as the top European club teams from Germany and England.
Fitness and team building sessions on Zayed Sports City’s outlying pitches have run alongside international friendly matches in the National Stadium.
Barry Bremner, general manager, Zayed Sports City, said: “Zayed Sports City is the perfect place for teams from all over the world from all leagues to come and train.
“We are capable of hosting multiple top-level matches in a short period of time. This January, for example, we have hosted over 11 international friendlies in less than three weeks.
“Our groundsmen work tirelessly to ensure our pitches are absolutely perfect for the needs of the individual teams and our growth plans means we will be able to accommodate even more teams in the future.
“We have a variety of surfaces to train on and the region’s most iconic stadium to play important matches in, just as the international friendlies have been this year.”
