UAE need to beat Afshin Ghotbi's side at Qatar Sports Club Stadium tomorrow and hope North Korea also see off Iraq at Al Rayyan Stadium but by a lesser margin.

"There is no pressure, I hope not," Katanec said.

"We are in the strongest group in the tournament, we were not favourites before and we are not now. I prefer to play good football and show people that the UAE have a good team.

"We played two matches, we have one point in the group, we have some problems, some small injuries but everybody should be ready for the game. We know what we have to do, we need to win and hope Korea beat Iraq but by less goals, so it's complicated.

"I'm proud of my work, proud of my players and the way we have played. We've been competitive at a high standard."

UAE are yet to find the back of the net in Doha despite boasting talented strike duo Ismael Matar and Ahmed Khalil with Katanec warning against pushing the latter too hard.

"We must take care with Ahmed," he said of the 19-year-old.

"He played with the Under-19s, the Olympic team and he's now here with us. He's the future for UAE, I'm satisfied with how he's done, the best strikers in the world miss chances. He has been used too much in the last three months. For a young player this is too much."

Iran have already secured top spot following wins over Iraq and North Korea to justify their billing as one of the pre-tournament favourites, a tag they are happy to live with according to Ghotbi.

"The pressure we feel is that which we put on ourselves," he said.

"From the moment we started putting this team together 20 months ago, we had one target and that's to win the tournament. These results have only given confirmation to our players that we have a team that is capable of winning the tournament.

"That gives us confidence and the platform to play better football in the coming days.

"Iranians are very intelligent and their minds are very busy so it's difficult to get them to concentrate on one task at a time. We've done a lot of work on this and I think it's one of the reasons why we've been able to achieve these results.

"Everyone understands their role."