2020–21 UAE Pro League

The 2020–21 UAE Pro League was the 46th edition of the UAE Pro League following the cancellation of the previous season, no team changes occurred due to the previous season declared as void in UAE football.^[1] Despite starting the season with rough results, Al Jazira went on to win their third league title while Baniyas finished second, coincidentally, both teams finished in the same positions ten years ago in the 2010–11 season.

UAE Pro League

Season	2020–21
Dates	16 October 2020 – 15 May 2021
Champions	Al Jazira (3rd title)
Relegated	Fujairah Hatta
2022 AFC Champions League	Al Jazira Baniyas Shabab Al Ahli Sharjah
FIFA Club World Cup	Al Jazira
Matches played	169
Goals scored	566 (3.35 per match)
Top goalscorer	Ali Mabkhout (25 goals)
Biggest home win	Al Wahda 6–0 Hatta (16 October 2020)
Biggest away win	Kalba 0–6 Al Jazira (14 February 2021)
Highest scoring	Shabab Al Ahli 3–5 Al Jazira (21 November 2020)
Longest winning run	Sharjah Al Jazira (6 games)
Longest unbeaten run	Shabab Al Ahli (13 games)
Longest winless run	Hatta (15 games)
Longest losing run	Hatta (8 games)
← 2019–20 2018–19 2021–22 → All statistics correct as of 15 May 2021.

Stadia and locations

Ajman

Ain

Dhafra

Jazira

Nasr

Wahda

Wasl

Baniyas

Fujairah

Hatta

Kalba

Khor F.

Shabab Al-Ahli

Sharjah

Locations of teams in the 2020–21 UAE Pro League

Note: Table lists clubs in alphabetical order.

Team	Home city	Stadium	Capacity
Ajman	Ajman	Ajman Stadium	5,537
Al Ain	Al-Ain	Hazza Bin Zayed Stadium	25,965
Al Dhafra	Madinat Zayed	Al Dhafra Stadium	5,020
Al Jazira	Abu Dhabi (Al Nahyan)	Mohammad Bin Zayed Stadium	42,056
Al Nasr	Dubai (Al Nasr)	Al-Maktoum Stadium	15,058
Al Wahda	Abu Dhabi (Al Nahyan)	Al Nahyan Stadium	12,201
Al Wasl	Dubai (Zabeel)	Zabeel Stadium	8,439
Baniyas	Abu Dhabi (Al Shamkha)	Baniyas Stadium	10,000
Fujairah	Fujairah	Fujairah Club Stadium	10,645
Hatta	Hatta	Hamdan Bin Rashid Stadium	5,000
Kalba	Kalba	Ittihad Kalba Stadium	8,500
Khor Fakkan	Khor Fakkan	SBM Al Qassimi Stadium	7,500
Shabab Al Ahli	Dubai (Deira)	Al-Rashid Stadium	12,052
Sharjah	Sharjah	Sharjah Stadium	20,000

Personnel and kits

Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

Team	Head coach	Captain	Kit Manufacturer	Shirt Sponsor
Ajman	Ayman Elramady	Rashed Malallah	Hummel	Ajman Bank
Al Ain	Pedro Emanuel	Ismail Ahmed	Nike	First Abu Dhabi Bank
Al Dhafra	Mohammad Kwid	Ahmed Ali	Adidas	Ruwais
Al Jazira	Marcel Keizer	Ali Khasif	Adidas	Healthpoint
Al Nasr	Ramón Díaz	Tareq Ahmed	N45	Emirates Islamic
Al Wahda	Henk ten Cate	Ismail Matar	Adidas	No sponsor
Al Wasl	Odair Hellmann	Lima	New Balance	Emaar
Baniyas	Daniel Isăilă	Fawaz Awana	Joma	No sponsor
Fujairah	Nassif Al Bayawi	Hilal Saeed	Nike	Asas
Hatta	Vladimir Vermezović	Mahmoud Hassan	uhlsport	No sponsor
Kalba	Jorge Da Silva	Mansor Abbas	Erreà	Caltex
Khor Fakkan	Caio Zanardi	Saif Mohammed	Adidas	No sponsor
Shabab Al Ahli	Mahdi Ali	Majed Naser	Nike	Nissan
Sharjah	Abdulaziz Al Yassi	Shahin Abdulrahman	Adidas	Saif Zone

Foreign players

All teams could register as many foreign players as they want, but could only use four on the field each game.

• Players name in bold indicates the player is registered during the mid-season transfer window.
• Players in italics were out of the squad or left the club within the season, after the pre-season transfer window, or in the mid-season transfer window, and at least had one appearance.

Club	Player 1	Player 2	Player 3	Player 4	Former Players
Ajman	Luiz Antônio	Bubacarr Trawally	Modibo Maïga	Iliass Bel Hassani	Diego Jardel Gustavo Vagenin William Owusu Diogo Amado
Al Ain	Wilson Eduardo	Tsukasa Shiotani	Shoya Nakajima	Kodjo Fo-Doh Laba	Bauyrzhan Islamkhan
Al Dhafra	Issam El Adoua	Mikhail Rosheuvel	Makhete Diop	Pedro Conde	Denílson Yaseen al-Bakhit
Al Jazira	Brandley Kuwas	Imoh Ezekiel	Miloš Kosanović	Thulani Serero
Al Nasr	Mehdi Abeid	Ryan Mendes	Dia Saba	Tozé	Brandley Kuwas Dostonbek Khamdamov
Al Wahda	Paul-José M'Poku	Lee Myung-joo	Tim Matavž	Omar Kharbin	Henrique Luvannor
Al Wasl	Nicolás Oroz	João Figueiredo	Neris	Ronaldo Mendes
Baniyas	Gastón Suárez	Nicolás Giménez	João Pedro	Saša Ivković
Fujairah	Rachid Aït-Atmane	Douglas Coutinho	Samuel Armenteros	Firas Ben Larbi	Farley Rosa Roly Bonevacia
Hatta	Jonathas	Dostonbek Khamdamov	Miral Samardžić	Nahir Besara	Willian Farias Kevin Londoño Vladimir Koman Mwape Musonda
Khor Fakkan	Bruno Lamas	Dodô	Paulinho	Ramon Lopes	Orlando Berrío Ricardinho
Kalba	Rômulo	Wanderson	Davide Mariani	Peniel Mlapa	Matías Pisano Júnior Fernándes
Shabab Al Ahli	Federico Cartabia	Carlos Eduardo	Jaloliddin Masharipov	Odiljon Hamrobekov	Héldon Ramos Azizjon Ganiev
Sharjah	Caio	Igor Coronado	Welliton	Otabek Shukurov

Managerial changes

Team	Outgoing manager	Date of vacancy	Manner of departure	Pos.	Incoming manager	Date of appointment
Baniyas	Winfried Schäfer	1 June 2020	End of contract	Pre-season	Daniel Isăilă[2]	27 June 2020
Fujairah	Fabio Viviani				Goran Tufegdžić[3]	12 July 2020
Khor Fakkan	Goran Tufegdžić	12 July 2020	Signed by Fujairah		Caio Zanardi[4]	2 October 2020
Al Wahda	Manuel Jiménez	18 July 2020	End of contract		Mark Wotte[5]	20 July 2020
	Mark Wotte[6]	7 September 2020	Sacked		Vuk Rašović[7]	7 September 2020
Al Dhafra	Vuk Rašović		Signed by Al Wahda		Aleksandar Veselinović[8]	25 September 2020
Al Wasl	Laurențiu Reghecampf[9]	18 October 2020	Sacked	12th	Salem Rabie[10]	20 October 2020
Hatta	Christos Kontis[11]	22 November 2020		14th	Vladimir Vermezović[12]	22 November 2020
Al Wasl	Salem Rabie	7 December 2020	Mutual consent	9th	Odair Hellmann[13]	8 December 2020
Shabab Al Ahli	Gerard Zaragoza	15 December 2020	Sacked	7th	Mahdi Ali[14]	15 December 2020
Al Dhafra	Aleksandar Veselinović	5 January 2021		10th	Mohammad Kwid[15]	5 January 2021
Al Nasr	Krunoslav Jurčić	4 February 2021		4th	Ramón Díaz[16]	4 February 2021
Fujairah	Goran Tufegdžić[17]	16 February 2021	Resigned	12th	Nassif Al Bayawi	17 February 2021
Al Wahda	Vuk Rašović[18]	12 March 2021	Sacked	8th	Henk ten Cate[19]	13 March 2021

League table

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification or relegation
1	Al Jazira (C)	26	17	6	3	65	29	+36	57	Qualification for AFC Champions League group stage and FIFA Club World Cup first round
2	Baniyas	26	16	6	4	50	22	+28	54	Qualification for AFC Champions League play-off round
3	Shabab Al Ahli	26	13	11	2	52	30	+22	50	Qualification for AFC Champions League group stage[a]
4	Sharjah	26	14	6	6	48	29	+19	48	Qualification for AFC Champions League play-off round
5	Al Nasr	26	14	4	8	47	33	+14	46
6	Al Ain	26	11	8	7	39	33	+6	41
7	Al Wahda	26	10	10	6	48	33	+15	40
8	Kalba	26	11	6	9	29	39	−10	39
9	Al Wasl	26	10	7	9	49	47	+2	37
10	Khor Fakkan	26	7	4	15	35	50	−15	25
11	Al Dhafra	26	5	6	15	31	58	−27	21
12	Ajman	26	4	6	16	24	57	−33	18
13	Fujairah (R)	26	4	3	19	31	57	−26	15	Relegation to UAE Division 1
14	Hatta (R)	26	3	3	20	19	50	−31	12

Source: Arabian Gulf League
Rules for classification: ^[20] 1) points; 2) head-to-head goal difference; 3) head-to-head goals scored; 4) head-to-head away goals scored; 5) goal difference; 6) number of goals scored; 7) number of away goals scored; 8) head-to-head points; 9) fair play ranking 10) draw
(C) Champions; (R) Relegated
Notes:

1. Since Shabab Al Ahli won the UAE President's Cup, they qualified directly to the AFC Champions League group stage meanwhile the league runner-ups Baniyas qualified for the play-off round instead.

Results

Home \ Away	AJM	AIN	DHA	JAZ	NAS	WAH	WAS	YAS	FUJ	HAT	KAL	KHF	SAD	SHR
Ajman		0–2	2–1	3–3	0–3	3–3	2–3	0–0	2–1	0–0	0–1	1–2	1–1	0–3
Al Ain	0–0		4–1	2–2	1–3	1–0	1–1	1–2	3–1	1–0	1–1	2–0	1–4	1–2
Al Dhafra	4–1	2–1		1–5	0–2	0–3	1–1	0–5	3–1	1–0	1–2	2–0	1–2	1–1
Al Jazira	3–0	2–0	1–1		3–0	2–0	3–2	3–3	4–2	3–0[a]	2–0	3–1	1–1	0–1
Al Nasr	3–0	1–2	3–2	1–1		2–2	0–1	1–0	3–2	2–0	2–1	2–1	2–3	2–1
Al Wahda	3–0	0–4	1–1	2–0	2–2		3–2	0–2	2–1	6–0	0–1	3–0	1–1	1–1
Al Wasl	4–2	1–2	2–1	2–3	0–3	2–2		1–4	3–0	2–1	4–4	1–2	2–2	3–3
Baniyas	2–0	4–1	3–1	1–3	3–2	1–1	0–2		2–1	1–0	0–2	5–0	0–0	1–0
Fujairah	1–2	1–1	4–2	0–3	2–0	1–4	1–1	1–3		1–0	0–3	1–2	3–2	2–4
Hatta	3–0	0–1	2–2	0–1	0–3	1–4	2–4	0–3	1–0		4–0	2–3	1–2	2–3
Kalba	2–1	1–1	2–1	0–6	3–3	0–0	0–3	0–2	1–0	0–0		2–1	0–3	1–0
Khor Fakkan	2–3	2–2	5–1	3–0	0–1	1–2	0–1	1–2	0–0	1–0	1–2		2–2	1–1
Shabab Al Ahli	5–1	1–1	0–0	3–5	1–0	2–2	3–0	0–0	3–2	3–0	2–0	4–3		1–0
Sharjah	2–0	1–2	5–0	0–3	2–1	2–1	2–1	1–1	3–2	3–0	1–0	5–1	1–1

Source: AGLeague
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.
For upcoming matches, an "a" indicates there is an article about the rivalry between the two participants.

1. The Emirates FA announced on 1 December 2020 that Hatta were found guilty for failing to fulfill match protocols by only conducting corona tests on 19 instead of 20 players in their match against Al Jazira in Round 7. They decided to award the match to Al Jazira as a 3–0 forfeit win; the match originally finished 2–0 to Al Jazira.^[21]

Seasonal statistics

Positions by round

	Leader and qualification to AFC Champions League group stage
	qualification to AFC Champions League Play off round
	Relegation to UAE First Division League

Team ╲ Round	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26
Al Jazira	7	10	6	5	7	4	3	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	1	1	1	1	2	1	1	1	1
Baniyas	2	1	1	3	3	6	8	7	5	4	4	4	3	3	3	3	3	3	2	2	2	1	2	2	2	2
Shabab Al Ahli	4	4	5	4	5	8	6	6	7	9	8	8	6	6	5	6	6	5	5	5	5	4	3	5	4	3
Sharjah	5	2	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	2	3	3	3	3	4	3	3	4
Al Nasr	8	6	4	2	2	3	2	3	3	3	3	3	4	4	4	5	5	4	4	4	4	5	5	4	5	5
Al Ain	6	5	8	9	6	5	4	5	6	5	5	5	5	5	6	4	4	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6
Al Wahda	1	7	7	6	4	2	5	4	8	7	6	6	7	7	7	8	7	7	7	8	8	7	8	8	8	7
Kalba	13	9	10	10	10	9	7	8	4	6	7	7	8	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	7	7	7	8
Al Wasl	12	8	9	8	9	10	10	9	9	10	9	9	9	8	8	7	8	8	8	7	7	8	9	9	9	9
Khor Fakkan	10	11	14	14	13	13	12	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	10	10	10	10	10	10
Al Dhafra	3	3	3	7	8	7	9	10	10	8	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	11	11	11	11	11	11
Ajman	11	13	11	12	11	12	13	13	13	13	13	13	13	12	12	13	13	13	12	12	12	13	12	12	12	12
Fujairah	9	12	13	11	12	11	11	12	12	12	12	12	12	13	13	12	12	12	13	13	13	12	13	13	13	13
Hatta	14	14	12	13	14	14	14	14	14	14	14	14	14	14	14	14	14	14	14	14	14	14	14	14	14	14

Source: UAEproleague

Top Scorers

As of 15 May 2021^[22]

Rank	Player	Club	Goals
1	Ali Mabkhout	Al Jazira	25
2	Fabio Lima	Al Wasl	22
3	João Pedro	Baniyas	18
4	Igor Coronado	Sharjah	17
5	Welliton	Sharjah	13
	Kodjo Laba	Al Ain
7	Igor Jesus	Shabab Al Ahli	12
	Peniel Mlapa	Kalba
	Tim Matavž	Al Wahda
10	Ramon Lopes	Khor Fakkan	11
	Sebastián Tagliabúe	Al Nasr

Clean sheets

As of 15 May 2021

Rank	Player	Club	Clean sheets
1	Fahad Al-Dhanhani	Baniyas	11
2	Ali Khasif	Al Jazira	10
3	Majed Naser	Shabab Al Ahli	8
	Jamal Al Sarrah	Kalba
5	Ahmed Shambih	Al Nasr	7
	Khalid Eisa	Al Ain
7	Mohammed Al-Shamsi	Al Wahda	5
	Adel Al-Hosani	Sharjah
9	Ahmed Mahmoud	Khor Fakkan	4
10	Khaled Al-Senani	Al Dhafra	3
	Ali Al-Hosani	Ajman
	Humaid Al-Najar	Al Wasl
	Abdullah Al-Tamimi	Fujairah

Hat-tricks

Player	For	Against	Result	Date	Round
Welliton	Sharjah	Al Dhafra	5–0 (H)	3 November 2020	4
Igor Jesus	Shabab Al Ahli	Hatta	3–0 (H)	4 November 2020
Ali Mabkhout	Al Jazira	Al Dhafra	5–1 (A)	5 February 2021	15
		Kalba	6–0 (A)	14 February 2021	16
Fabio Lima4	Al Wasl	Kalba	4–4 (H)	19 February 2021	17
Ali Mabkhout	Al Jazira	Fujairah	4–2 (H)	15 March 2021	21

Notes

⁴ Player scored 4 goals
(H) – Home team
(A) – Away team

Number of teams by Emirates

	Emirate	Number of teams	Teams
1	Abu Dhabi	5	Al Ain, Al Jazira, Al Wahda, Baniyas and Al Dhafra
2	Dubai	4	Shabab Al Ahli, Al Nasr, Al Wasl and Hatta
3	Sharjah	3	Sharjah, Kalba and Khor Fakkan
4	Ajman	1	Ajman
Fujairah	Fujairah