The Middle Eastern side jumped out to an early 2-0 lead with goals by Ahmed Khalil and Rashed Essa in the first 12 minutes before Abdulaziz Hussain sealed victory with a third five minutes from time.

"We sealed the game tonight right from the beginning by scoring two quick goals," said Ali in the post-match press conference.

"These two goals helped the players to play with high confidence and I think they depressed the Australians.

"Our plan was to try to get an early lead with a goal in the first quarter of the game. We continued our good form in the second half and we missed a number of chances to extend our advantage.

"We had a great game tonight and I want to congratulate all of the players for a big performance. They showed strong fighting spirit which helped us to get the win.”

UAE’s reward is a spot in the final against Uzbekistan on Friday.

"We played against Uzbekistan in a friendly tournament and we have watched their matches in the competition," added Ali.

"They have a good team but both teams have good players and at the end of the day, the best team will win."

Australia coach Jan Versleijen admitted that his side were beaten by a better team.

"UAE deserved to win tonight as they played a better game than us and they were sharper than us in the first 20 minutes," said Versleijen.

"They took a quick 2-0 lead and we couldn’t get back into the game despite controlling the play.

"We couldn’t perform at the level that we played at in the group stage and in the quarter-finals. We defended well in our previous matches but defending was not one of our strongest points today.

"When we were 2-0 down, we started to play better and we dominated the game and had half-chances to score. We were hoping that we could score a goal and go into the second half only one goal down.

"In the second half we kept the ball for a long time but we didn’t have the power to finish the chances that we created," added Versleijen.

"To be honest, I was surprised with the way that we conceded the first two goals as we don’t usually give away such goals."