Dubai: Al Shabab beat Qatar’s Al Khuraitiat 4-0 at home in the GCC Champions League quarter-finals on Wednesday to progress to the semi-finals along with Al Nasr, who beat Kuwait’s Al Jahra 4-2 at home on Tuesday.
Carlos Villanueva opened the scoring before the interval and added a second ten minutes from time, before late goals from Adeilson Perreira and Nasser Masoud sealed humiliation for the visitors.
Elsewhere, Al Jahra twice came from behind against Al Nasr only to lose on penalties. Mohammad Al Shammari cancelled out Brett Holman’s early opener before the half-hour, and Leo Da Silva’s late penalty levelled Habib Fardan’s second on the hour to take the game to a shootout.
Al Nasr keeper Ahmad Shambieh denied Mohammad Al Shammari and Abdul Rahman Ziad from the spot after Alexandros Santos and Faisal Santos had scored.
Title drought
But the home side converted all their penalties through Leo Lima, Habib Fardan, Ebrahima Toure and Brett Holman to keep their hopes of ending a 25-year title drought alive.
In the tournament’s other semi-finals, both Omani clubs beat their Bahraini opponents in the sultanate. Al Nahda overcame Al Muharraq 3-0 at home on Wednesday and Saham saw off Al Busaiteen 3-1 at home on Tuesday.
The semi-finals will be played over two legs on May 6 and 13 before the final on May 18.
This is Al Shabab’s sixth GCC Champions League appearance in 21 editions of the competition. They won the tournament in 1992 and 2011. Al Nasr have only made one previous appearance back in 1987 where they finished fourth in a five-team round-robin.
