Shehi's solitary goal gives the UAE a 1-0 victory

Abu Dhabi: Mohammad Shehi's solitary goal off a penalty was enough to hand the UAE a 1-0 victory in the "Our Country v Our Cup" match at Zayed Sport City late Friday night.

The match was played at a lively pace and after number of midfield battles the hosts were awarded a penalty when City goalkeeper Stuart Taylor brought Saeed Al Kas down in the box. Taylor failed to dispatch a back pass from Ben Mee, and shot straight at Al Kas who had an open goal to shoot into before the keeper’s harsh intervention.

Al Shehi converted the ninth minute penalty and the UAE settled in comfortably as City didn’t press too hard in their search for an equaliser.

It took a good 35 minutes for the next anxious moment to come along and it went against City, however, Al Shehi's acrobatic side volley following a brilliant move down the right struck a Blues defender and rolled just wide of Stuart’s left post.

Manager Mark Hughes’ half-time talk seemed to have worked and City started the second-half looking more purposeful, but they failed to create much. The visitors, though, would be awarded a number of free-kicks, but they failed to capitalise and chance after chance went a-begging. Skipper Stephen Ireland forced substitute UAE keeper Majed Nasser to make a diving save off his 52nd minute free-kick, but there wasn’t much to look out for after that.

Meanwhile, at the other end, Taylor presented the UAE with another opportunity in front of the goalmouth when he spilt a cross for Ahmad Khalil to head home a few minutes. The latter, though, produced a defender’s header aimed directly at Taylor, which resulted in an easy collection for the City goalie.

Taylor, however, was up to the task deep in injury time as he produced a brilliant save to push Mahmoud Khamis' 25-yard shot over the horizontal.