Abu Dhabi: Al Ain coach Zlatko Dalic hopes his experience of coaching AFC Champions League semi-final opponents Al Hilal will boost his side’s hopes of reaching the final.
Al Ain cruised into the last four of the competition with a resounding 3-1 win on the night on Tuesday and 5-1 aggregate victory over Saudi giants Al Ittihad at King Abdulaziz Sport City.
Boss Dalic said the winners of the inaugural AFC Champions League tournament in 2003 would now swiftly switch their focus to another Saudi outfit Al Hilal, whom he coached last year before joining Al Ain.
“We will turn our attention to Al Hilal now and I know them well as I have previously coached them. I know their weaknesses and strengths. The best team will reach the final and I hope that we can make it,” said the Croatian.
Al Ain had their chances early on through Frenchman Jires Kembo-Ekoko, Ahmad Barman and ace midfielder Omar Abdul Rahman. Earlier, Fares Juma’s header found the far corner of the net off a free-kick by Miroslav Stoch, only to be disallowed for offside.
To make matters worse, Al Ain suddenly saw themselves trailing by an own goal by Esmail Ahmad, who deflected a Marquinho cross into his own net in the 35th minute.
That goal boosted the hopes of Al Ittihad, who had lost 2-0 in the first leg, of making a comeback.
However, Al Ain’s star Ghanaian striker Asamoah Gyan immediately quelled such thoughts by quickly restoring parity. Gyan thus swelled his goal tally in the tournament to 12. Abdul Rahman later compensated for his earlier miss with an opportunistic strike in the second half, before substitute Ebrahim Diaky sealed the fate of their rivals with the third goal.
“We came to Saudi Arabia ready for the match and we wanted to train in Jeddah in order to save time. We are satisfied with the performance and the result. We were relaxed after we scored the equaliser,” Dalic added.
“We achieved what we wanted early in the match as this made things easier for the players and they were released from pressure. They then showed a good performance. We are happy that we managed to repeat our victory today and advance to the semi-finals.”
Al Ittihad coach Khalid Al Koroni was full of praise for Al Ain, saying: “I want to congratulate Al Ain for reaching the semi-finals as they deserved to win and qualify.
“The match was very hard for us and the first goal for Al Ain made things harder and it destroyed any chances for us to qualify.”
The coach went on to reveal that he made changes to the side that played in the first leg, but wasn’t enough to chance their fortunes.
“We started the match with Mohammad Abusabaan, who has attacking abilities and we needed to add another forward and that’s why we played with Didier Ya Konan but unfortunately, our plan didn’t work and we couldn’t score.
“The main problem that we have is that the coherence between our players is still not complete.”
Al Hilal and Qatari club Al Sadd played out a scoreless draw, with Al Hilal advancing 1-0 on aggregate.
Al Hilal will host the first leg of the AFC West semifinals on September 16, with the second leg set for September 30 in the UAE.
On Wednesday, Western Sydney Wanderers delivered a seismic shock Wednesday when they sent title-holders and hot tournament favourites Guangzhou Evergrande crashing out of the AFC Champions League.
The Australian debutants survived despite losing the quarter-final’s second leg 2-1, as they went through on away goals following last week’s 1-0 upset win in Sydney.
The surprise victory means Tony Popovic’s side become only the second Australian team to reach the AFC Champions League semi-finals, after Adelaide United in 2008.
Guangzhou’s World Cup-winning coach Marcello Lippi, banished to the stands after angrily confronting last week’s referee, sat with a lit cigar as his title defence went up in smoke.
The Wanderers will next face last year’s runners-up FC Seoul, whose goalkeeper Yu Sang-Hun saved three penalties in a dramatic shoot-out to deny Korean rivals Pohang Steelers.
Guangzhou were a weakened side, missing three players through suspension as well as Italian maestro Lippi, who was punished for his angry reaction after two late red cards in Sydney.
But Italian forward Alberto Gilardino came within inches for the Chinese champions when his cushioned near-post volley rebounded off the crossbar from a tight angle.
Elkeson should have levelled the tie at 1-1 on aggregate after he was sent crashing the penalty area by Western Sydney’s Iacopo La Rocca.
However, the big Brazilian’s soft penalty was parried by Wanderers goalkeeper Ante Covic, who dived the right way to keep the visitors in front.
The mood was darkening at Tianhe stadium and it became bleak when home goalkeeper Zeng Cheng up-ended Mark Bridge, and Tomi Juric coolly slotted the penalty on 57 minutes.
But Guangzhou’s response came swiftly and just four minutes later, Gilardino’s knock-down was smashed home by his compatriot Alessandro Diamanti to make it 1-1 on the night.
Guangzhou poured forward but Gilardino, Elkeson and Dong Xuesheng all let good opportunities slip as the champions’ title defence ebbed away.
Elkeson finally hit the net a minute into injury time but there was to be no fairytale comeback for the financially well-endowed team tagged “the Manchester United of Asia”.
Meanwhile in Seoul, 210 minutes of goalless football gave way to an extraordinary shoot-out when ‘keeper Yu saved kicks from Hwang Ji-Soo, Kim Jae-Sung and Park Hee-Chul.
Kim Jin-Kyu also missed a penalty for FC Seoul but Everton Santos, Osmar Barba and Mauricio Molina converted for the 2013 runners-up to send them through to the last four once again.
