Al Wahda took a giant step forward after they beat visitors Al Shabab 2-0 in their first division football league encounter at Al Nahyan Stadium yesterday to break the heart of German Rainer Hollman, the new coach of Al Shabab who guided the team in his difficult task.

Al Wahda, the winner of the Super Cup last season, increased their tally to 16 points from eight matches while Al Shabab remained at the bottom of the standings with only two points from the same number of matches.

The match was well balanced in the first half with both teams exchanging attacking moves.

Al Shabab's playmaker Waleed Obaid, though not fully recovered from his injury, fed his striking colleagues, Ali Daie of Iran and Salim Saad with penetrating passes and crosses that created havoc into the home defence.

Al Wahda played with midfielders Fahad Massoud and Basheer Saeed as fullbacks to cover for the absence of their injured colleagues.

On the other side of the field, Mohammed Al Enazy of Qatar, Castillo of Colombia, Ismail Matar and Hayder Allo Ali had their fair share of scoring chances but lack of concentration deprived both teams of scoring goals in the first 45 minutes.

Al Wahda, in the first half missed the services of their pivotal midfielder Abdul Salam Jumaa, absent for two weeks because of injury and both his younger brother Abdul Rahim and Tawfeeg Abdul Razag did not fit into his shoes.

But that does not mean they did not perform well. Both of them were busy doing both attacking and defending tasks.

They played a good role in the victory which their team achieved within three minutes only in the second half.

Al Shabab coach Hollman was forced to replace Waleed with his younger colleague Abdul Rahman Fadhil during the break and the team lost the connection between their strikers and the other lines of the team which made it easier for Al Wahda to neutralise both Daie and Saad after the breather which gave Massoud and Basheer the opportunity to advance to assist in attack.

It was Massoud, the "Rocket Launcher" of Al Wahda, who drew first blood as he went into a tremendous raid into the right flank going past a defender before sending one of his trade mark rockets into the far corner of the net as one of the most beautiful goals this season, 22minutes after the interval.

Only less than two minutes more and Al Enazy went into the same side, past two defenders before shooting into the roof of the net from an impossible angle for his team's second goal.

Minutes later, Al Enazy was replaced by Yasir Salim because of injury and Yasir should have added another goal when he went past three defenders but his shot was blocked by the defenders for a corner.

Al Wahda dominated the remainder of the match but did not add more goals while Al Shabab's attempts were unsuccessful because they were mainly individual attempts.