Dubai: Al Jazira’s horror start to their Arabian Gulf League (AGL) title defence continued with a 4-2 defeat at home to 10-man Al Nasr on Saturday.
Ali Mabkhout became the AGL’s highest scorer of all-time with his 102nd strike, which cancelled out Musallem Fayez’ fourth minute own-goal on 12 minutes.
But, despite Fares Juma adding a second for the hosts six minutes later, the celebrations were short-lived.
Wanderley Santos equalised a minute later and put the visitors back in front on 38 minutes, even though Al Nasr had a man sent off before the half hour following Fawaz Awana’s second yellow.
Al Jazira then failed to get back in the game despite playing against just 10-men for over an hour, handing Al Nasr their first league win under new coach Cesare Prandelli.
Al Nasr added a fourth through Rashid Omar before the hour and Al Jazira too lost a man when Eisa Al Otaiba was sent off deep in stoppage-time.
This was Al Jazira’s first league defeat at home in 15 games since April 2016 and their second loss from the first three league games of the season following last week’s shock 1-0 defeat away to Dibba.
The Dibba defeat was their first league loss — home or away — in seven matches since March this year. And, in terms of bad starts, this is even worse than Al Jazira’s notorious seventh-placed finish in 2015/16, when Eric Gerets was sacked and replaced by Henk ten Cate, midway through the season.
Al Jazira started 2015/16 with six points from three and now have just three points from three, after opening with a 2-1 win at home to newly-promoted Ajman last month before these back-to-back losses.
Ten Cate famously salvaged a President’s Cup win from 2015/16 to save his job and took that momentum into last season’s record-breaking league win, with most points, wins and biggest goal difference benchmarks all falling.
It remains to be seen if the Dutchman can turn this latest debacle around however, and the pressure is particularly on him ahead of this Friday’s home tie with Al Ain in the League Cup, especially as he spent the most over the summer.
He brought in three new foreigners; Romarinho, Sardor Rashidov and Lassana Diarra, as well as the now injured UAE striker Ahmad Khalil, who won Asian Player of the Year honours in 2015.
Elsewhere this weekend, league leaders Al Wahda continued their perfect start with a 3-1 win at home to Al Dhafra and 12-time record league winners Al Ain leapfrogged Shabab Al Ahli Dubai Club for second with a 2-1 win over the newly merged outfit.
Last season’s runners-up Al Wasl also moved into third with a 2-1 win away to Sharjah.
