Al Ain qualified for the President's Cup semifinals as they defeated Al Jazira 4-2 via tie-breaker at the Rashid stadium yesterday. The two teams were tied 1-1 at the end of regular as well extra-time.
Al Ain will now meet Al Shaab in the semifinals on April 25, the former having beaten Al Ittihad 2-1 in the second quarterfinal held at the Al Wasl Stadium.
Action during the President's Cup quarterfinal between Al Ain (in white) and Al Jazira. ©Gulf News |
Hussain Suhail and Yousuf Abdul Aziz scored for Al Jazira, with Colombian Alison Bisera and Yousuf Hasan's spot-kicks being saved by the Al Ain custodian Walid Salim.
Al Jazira played with 10 men in the last 10 minutes of extra-time with the referee issuing marching orders to defender Mohamed Al Sayed for his second bookable offence. The match was marred by rough tackles and the referee fllashed his yellow card eight times (four for each team).
The first 45 minutes loked quite boring without a real threat to either goalkeepers with defenders ofboth teams marking the strikers closely and clearing all the chances coming their way.
Al Jazira's Colombian striker caused some headache to the Al Ain defenders who failed to stop him in the 60th minute. With a swift move, Bisera fired a cracker after he faced Walid Salim, but unfortunately his powerful shot bounced off the bar and the defence cleared it away.
The tempo picked up in the second session with both teams attacking to clinch the winner.
After seven minutes into this half, Rudrigo benefitted from an error by Al Jazira defender Adib Obaid when he failed to clear a long pass by Sultan Rashid, advanced to a one-to-one situation with the goalkeeper, but kept his cool to lob the ball over him to score for Al Ain.
Al Jazira , of course, levelled after two minutes when Saleh Abdullah's shot was blocked by Walid Salim who came out to narrow the angle. Bisera, however, shot from the lose ball into an empty net to level the score 1-1.
Abu Bakr Sanogo then fired a right footer which went just over the bar in 75th minute and Saleh Abdullah lost a good chance for Al Jazira when he faced Walid, but his shot went past the upright in the 81st minute.
The two teams shared dominance in extra-time but defenders kept them at bay until the final whistle.
In the second match, Samir Ibrahim of Al Shaab scored the winner in the third minute of injury-time to give his team a 2-1 win. Mohammed Suroor scored first for Al Shaab in the 58th minute, while Majed Abdullah leveled for Al Ittihad in the 74th minute.
