Abu Dhabi: Al Ain coach Zoran Mamic was a relieved man after his side won a crucial play-off match against Bahrain’s Malkiya 2-0 to confirm their place in the group stage of the AFC Champions League on Tuesday.
With Al Ain progressing, the UAE will have four teams vying for Asia’s continental showpiece this season; Al Jazira, Al Wasl and Al Wahda are the other teams to compete in the event.
Al Ain join 2017 AFC Champions League runners-up Al Hilal, Iran’s Esteghlal and Qatar’s Al Rayyan in Group D of the competition.
For Al Ain, both foreign recruits — Sweden’s Marcus Berg and Brazilian Caio — scored a goal apiece in the second half against Malkiya. However, two of their key midfielders — Omar Abdul Rahman and Ahmad Barman — sustained injuries and the coach was a bit worried about getting them ready for another key fixture in the local Arabian Gulf League (AGL) against Ajman on Saturday.
Al Ain are at the top of the table with just one-point edge over second-placed Al Wasl and cannot afford any slip-ups.
“I am happy that my team qualified to the group stage of ACL 2018 but I’m so annoyed by the injuries of Barman and Omar,” said Mamic after his team’s showing.
He was of the view that their side’s focus immediately shifts towards the AGL and he will have to wait and see the extent of the injury to Abdul Rahman and Barman.
“The injuries require further X-rays which will be conducted soon to identify the seriousness. Based on that, we will determine by when they can rejoin the team. I hope they recover soon and join the team for the next challenge,” said Mamic, who was confident that the team will be ready to make an impact in the Champions League group stages.
“Absolutely, Al Ain’s squad has the best players and they will be ready for all challenges. However, as of now, our focus is on our coming match against Ajman,” said the Croatian, who chose not to take the services of his latest signing from Al Jazira Ahmed Khalil for this outing.
“Khalil has not played official matches during the past months and so I did give him the chance to play in Al Ain’s recent three matches,” he said. “He still need some time to be at his best so I preferred to keep him on the bench today. I also didn’t keep Hussein El Shahat till the end to give him some rest as he had been pushed a bit too much in the past matches.”
Al Ain will be taking on Al Hilal in the Champions League group stage opener on February 13.
“I urged the players to show their true fighting spirit and be more serious. Indeed, if you do not play football in the right manner, you will definitely face problems,” said Mamic.
Goal scorer Berg speaking about the next match against Al Hilal said: “These are the matches which we need to win to build our confidence and we will be looking to do that against Hilal. Today the important part was to make sure that we qualified for the group stage and we have achieved that.
“It was an OK game, although we should have scored more goals. I would say that concentration was not the problem in the first half. We wanted to finish the game early but that’s the way football is.”
With the conclusion of the play-off fixtures, it is also clear whom the remaining teams from UAE will be playing against in their group-stage openers.
Al Jazira will be taking on Qatari outfit Al Gharafa, who won their play-off match against Uzbek’s Pakhtakor Tashkent 2-1, on February 12. Al Wahda will meet another Uzbek Club Lokomotiv Tashkent on February 12, while Al Wasl will be taking on Qatar’s Al Sadd.
