Dubai: Al Shabab, Fujairah and Al Ain all picked up full points in seventh round action of the Arabian Gulf League (AGL) on Wednesday night.
Al Shabab salvaged an engrossing 4-2 home win against Sharjah, while Al Ain were made to work hard before settling for a 2-1 win at home against Emirates Club and Fujairah beat Kalba 2-1 in a battle of new entrants.
Former champions Al Ain had Ebrahim Diakhy scoring a brace in-between Mubarak Saeed’s equalizer for the visitors after Fujairah had packed off Kalba 2-1 in an earlier match.
Wednesday’s results see Al Shabab and Al Ain ease towards the top with 12 points each, just two behind current league leaders Al Wahda. Kalba remain rooted in the cellar with just one point to show after seven matches, while Fujairah enter the upper half with nine points.
Al Shabab shone in patches, but that was enough for them to score once in the first half and then add three in the second to take maximum points against Sharjah.
With heat and humidity playing a prominent role in the performance of players, Al Shabab opened the account on the 15th minute through Eisa Obaid and added a second five minutes into the second half through Chilean player Carlos Villanueva.
After that they seemed to go into a daze, allowing the visitors to get a goal back through Wanderley Santos Monteiro. That was enough to rouse them from the temporary slumber as they added two more goals through Henrique Luvannor in the 76th minute and a sweetly-curled free kick during injury time from Uzbekistan's Azizbek Hydarov.
However, the action was far from over as Al Shabab goalkeeper Salem Abdullah did the most stupid mistake of taking his own sweet time in picking up a loose ball inside the area, only for Monteiro to dart in and find the net for the second time on the night.
