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Al Ain overcome Al Nasr to remain leaders of group "A"

Al Ain football team remained as leaders of group "A" of the Etisalat Cup Competition raising their tally to 12 points following their 2-0 win over hosts Al Nasr in their match played this night December 2 at Al Maktoum pitch in the concluding day of round 6.

The winners controlled the major parts of the first session putting more pressure on their opponents' defense which resulted in two goals. Hadaf Abdullah Al Amry put Al Ain on the lead when he received a lovely pass from Juma'a Saeed from Ivory Coast to slam the ball home in the 14th minute and the Argentinean player Sand added the second goal off a penalty when his teammate Hadaf Al Amry was brought down by Al Nasr's defender Saeed Mubarak three minutes before the end of the first half. The home team remain now as runners-up in the ladder with eight points, one point and two points ahead of Bani Yas and Al Dhafra respectively who will meet on Friday December 3, and the winners in this game will proceed to the 2nd place. Both Al Ain and Al Nasr were tied to a 1-1 draw in their last match played in the 5th stage at Tahnoon Bin Mohammed stadium in Qattara.

In the second match of the day. Kalba added three valuable points after a 2-1 win over visitors Al Jazira to collect their 8th point; the same balance that of Al Jazira and Al Shabab. This victory helped Kalba to step forward to the 3rd place with Al Jazira taking 2nd position and Al Shabab 4th on goal difference. But Al Shabab still have a match at hand as they will face Sharjah on Friday December 3. Kalba and Al Jazira were tied to a 2-2 draw in the 5th stage game.

The winners demonstrated a brilliant display, created a number of scoring opportunities and they came close to score in many occasions. It was only 14 minutes into the game before they netted their first goal through Gregory, but Ibrahima Diaky leveled the score eleven minutes later to end the first session with a 1-1 draw. The two teams exerted more efforts hoping to add more goals that would have helped them to snatch the three points, but the hosts were the closest to achieve this objective. Gregory came to add his second goal only 8 points after the break to make it 2-1. He was to score a hat trick two minutes before the final whistle but he failed to slam the ball home off a penalty when Saleh Obaid of Al Jazira used his hand to stop the ball going into the empty net to receive a red card in the 88th minute. Al Jazira goalie Khalid Essa saved the penalty kick brilliantly to end the game with a 2-1 win for the host team.