Al Shaab paid dearly for individual mistakes as they lost the President's Cup final 2-3 against Al Ain in a festival held yesterday at Zayed Sports City with the theme "For the Love of Zayed" with Sheikh Sultan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister, representing President His Highness Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, patron of the event.
Al Shaab took the lead twice following outstanding performances from their Dutch midfielder Gert Brusselers and his professional colleague Sheikh Dayob, from Senegal, as they combined together to score twice for Al Shaab, but an grave error led to Saeed Yousuf scoring an own goal to level the scores at 1-1 then Rashid Al Dossary failed to finish from a clear position only for Al Ain to equalise through Joel Tiehi in a fast counter-attack and Jumaa Mousa sealed the result for Al Ain in the second minute of the injury time as Adil Anas, the Al Shaab's custodian failed to clear.
Action from the match between Al Ain and Al Shaab.©Gulf News |
Al Shaab applied a strict man to man marking all over the field and built fast counter-attacks, mostly in the right flank, led by Rashid Al Dossary, Jasim Al Dokhy and Omran Al Jasmi in the first half while Al Ain attempted their zone defence. They relayed on well organised attacking moves from the depth led by Salim Jawhar and Subait Khatir.
Both teams paid more attention to the defence as a precaution not to let the their opponents take the lead and most of the attacking moves were fruitless due to the solid defence with the assistance from the midfield. Anas and Waleed Salim, the goalkeepers, played a brilliant role in the first half to keep their nets clean for most of the time. Salim had to surrender his clean sheet as Gert found the bottom of the net, one minute before the break, when Dayob headed from the right off a cross from Abdul Rahman Ibrahim and Gert was inside the six-yard area to head home the first goal for Al Shaab.
Al Ain resumed after the breather pressing for the equaliser and Al Shaab changed their strategy to defence and off-side trap. Khatir, Tiehi and Mousa all came near to scoring, but haste deprived them of all the sitters that came their way in the early minutes of the second half.
Gert, playing his best match, sent Al Dossary clear in a fast counter-attack, 25 minutes after the break. Al Dossary went past a defender, but lacked concentration in finishing the move from inside the penalty box only for his shot to miss the wide open goal.
He and his team were punished abruptly as Ghareeb Harib led Al Ain in the right-flank from the goal kick, that followed the miss of Al Dossary, and his cross was deflected by Saeed Yousuf inside his own goal for the equaliser that indicated the misunderstanding between the Al Shaab's goalie and his defenders.
Dragan, the Yugoslav coach of Al Shaab, brought in Sameer Ibrahim, the fast winger, in place of Jasim Al Dokhy, two minutes after the goal. Ibrahim crossed for Dayob, whose header was brilliantly saved by Waleed Salim, the Al Ain custodian, who was injured in the process and was replaced by Moutaz Abdulla.
The resulting corner kick was played by Sameer Ibrahim and was cleared by the defenders into his path to cross to Dayob, whose header rebounded from the up left to find Gert in the right place at the right moment and the Dutch midfielder fired home his team's second goal, 33 minutes into the second half.
Tiehi lost a golden chance to level the scores as his clever shot missed the goal by centimetres,only two minutes after Al Shaab took the lead. But the experienced striker soon made amends as he went past a defender and lobbed home the Al Ain's second goal, six minutes before the end.
Both teams continued to attack fiercely and Moutaz made a spectacular save to deny Dayob a certain goal, in the first minute of the injury time. Subait Khatir led a fast rebounding attack on the right side and his cross caught the Al Shaab's defenders off guard only for Mousa to score the all important goal, three minutes into injury time. It was Al Ain's second title from seven finals while Al Shaab featured in their third final and had won once.
