Abu Dhabi: A tooth-and-nail battle is on cards when the Pride of Abu Dhabi Al Jazira take on Qatari Club Al Gharafa in the AFC Champions League Group A fixture at the Mohammad Bin Zayed Stadium on Monday. The action starts at 7.30pm.

With the chances of defending the title in the Arabian Gulf League sealed, Al Jazira coach Henk ten Cate said that the focus of his team has shifted solely on to the continental showpiece and they are keen to progress from the group stages.

“It is the first game in the series and it is always important. A win will mean a lot but same goes for Al Gharafa; they will go for a win as well. I think for us it is more of a necessity. I hope it will be a nice game and hopefully, we will be on the right side of the score,” said Ten Cate in the pre-match press conference.

“This is one of the new challenge now and we want to focus on this. We want to go into the next stage and a good start will help us. We have to focus on this game and win it. We have to do that with young boys and I don’t care. So far none of my boys have disappointed me, in fact they have surprised us,” said Ten Cate, whose side come into the match at the back of their 1-1 draw against Al Wasl and are trailing by 16 points against the local league leaders Al Ain.

Al Gharafa qualified for the group stages beating Uzbekistan’s Pakhtakor but come into the contest at the back of some setbacks in their domestic Qatar Stars League. They lost their last match to league leaders and AFC Champions League hopefuls Al Duhail leaving Bulent Uygun’s team 22 points off the summit.

Al Jazira and Al Gharafa have met in the Asian Champions League before in the group stages in 2010 and 2011. In 2010, Al Gharafa recorded home and away wins en route to the knockout phase while a year later, the Qatari Club won in Doha and settled for a goalless draw in Abu Dhabi as both sides failed to progress.

“I saw three videos of Al Gharafa and the last one was against Pakhtakor which I just finished before coming for the press conference. They are a good team and have good players.

“One of them was my player (Wesley Sneijder) when he was with Ajax before moving to Real Madrid. I spoke to him last night, not about the game but because of our friendship. We both have houses in Ibiza so are very good friends,” said Ten Cate, who added that the mood in the camp was good and everyone was raring to go.

Al Wahda, another club from the capital, will also be taking on Lokomotiv Tashkent in their away fixture today in Uzbekistan. Al Wahda returns to the Champions League group stage for a fourth time.

The Tashkent-based side were the quarterfinalists in 2016 but were unable to reproduce that form in 2017 when they finished bottom of Group A with just one win against UAE’s Al Ahli.

“I think it will be a difficult game for us because it’s the first game of the tournament. We have some small issues with some of our players so have decided not to bring them here. But I’m confident that we can get a positive result,” said Al Wahda coach Laurentiu Reghecampf.

Al Wahda’s Hungarian winger Balazs Dzsudzsak speaking ahead of the contest said, “For sure, it’s going to be a difficult game. It will be difficult conditions to play in. It’s a small pitch and it will be a good experience but hopefully, we can get a good result.”