Dubai: With uncertainty hanging around his future, Dan Petrescu is confident of leading Al Nasr to their maiden trophy this season following a hard-fought 1-0 win against Hatta in the President’s Cup semi-final late on Thursday.
A 71st minute strike from Abdul Aziz Barrada was enough for Al Nasr to get past a gutsy Hatta and set up a meeting in the final against Al Wahda on May 18.
Petrescu was handed a one-year contract with Al Nasr in November 2016 following the mid-season sacking of Ivan Jovanovic. The club management has reportedly not made any move to commence talks on renewing the Romanian coach’s contract.
“My focus is on winning,” Petrescu told media after seeing his team book their place in the President’s Cup final for the second time in three years.
“When a team reaches a semi-final or a final, it is all about having a winning mentality. We have been missing players, but despite this we managed to achieve what we wanted. Next month is the final and we will go into it with a much better disposition,” he promised.
Brazilian Santos Wanderley was missing due to an earlier injury. So was the influential Jonathan Pitroipa along with hard-working playmaker Tariq Ahmad.
Al Nasr and Hatta have played each other twice in the AGL this season and it is Hatta who have won on both occasions — a 2-1 away win in the first week of December followed by a solitary-goal victory in Hatta last week.
But Al Nasr showed a lot of resilience against their gutsy opponents. The first half ended goalless, and it was only in the 71st minute that Moroccan Barrada received the ball from Mahmoud Khamis and swept in a left-footer high into the Hatta net for what proved to be the match-winner.
“Yes, they won both the times in the league, but we have got a favourable result when it mattered most,” Petrescu said.
“One of the biggest problems we have had in the past few months is that we have never had all players at my disposal. Today we did not have a few key players in the line-up. So we had to make do with our bench strength, and I think they did very well against a well-organised team,” he added.
Al Nasr defender Khalifa Mubarak recalled how last week’s solitary-goal loss to the same opponents had stung the Dubai camp. “They celebrated so wildly after winning last week and that acted as a huge motivation for us,” the defender said.
“We realised that we had to stay focused and show the hunger to win, and that’s exactly what we did. The final is still some time away and we will have enough time to prepare for the same,” he added.
