The Cosmos have touched down in Dubai, and Thursday saw them play their first preseason game of 2014. They lost the game 1-0 to Al Shabab, a club in the middle of their season at the moment.
The full match report can be found at the club's official site, along with some quotes from several players and head coach Gio Savarese. Here's a few highlights from the man in charge:
"As for the match, it was a preseason game. We flew in from New York a couple days ago and it was our first preseason game."
"We played a lot of players who we wanted to see. We wanted to see where they are at and I think we got a good look."
"Overall, this was a good game. There are some things I was very happy with and some things we still need to work on. Now we can go back to the National Training Center and start preparing for our next match."
Like all preseason contests, the result means very little in the grand scheme of things. It would have been awfully nice to see the match though, as there are big decisions to be made about who backs up Jimmy Maurer as well as who leads the Cosmos' attack. Seeing Jimmy Ockford in green would have been pretty nice as well, as he's an unknown quantity to most at this point. Hopefully we'll see a bit more of the next one...