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Al Wahda fail to advance to the FIFA CWC Semifinal

Abu Dhabi -based Al Wahda, Etisalat Pro-League 2009's champion, dashed their hopes to advance to the semifinal stage of the FIFA Club World Cup following their 1-4 loss to Asian Clubs Champion Seongnam from South Korea in the quarterfinal encounter played on last Saturday December 11th at Zayed Sports City stadium. The winners, who played brilliantly and demonstrated good technical standard in front of a crowd of over 30,000, ended the first session with a 2-1 lead. They will face the European Clubs Champion Inter Milan on Wednesday December 15.

The home team started their march in this event with a 3-0 win over Hekari from New Guinea in the opener on Wednesday December 8 and TP Mazembe of Congo made their way through to the semifinal after stunning Pachuca from Mexico by a solitary goal on last Friday. Al Wahda will fight for the fifth spot when they face Pachuca on Wednesday this week.

Internacional of Italy are going to start their campaign on Wednesday December 15 when they meet Seongnam of South Korea, whereas Mazembe will face Internacional from Brazil. The two teams emerging winners from the semifinal stage games, are likely to go into the finals due to kick off on Saturday December 18.

Al Wahda made a handful of errors in their second game that well capitalized by their contenders to score  4 goals that put the hosts out of the title race. A joint mistake committed by Al Wahda's defender Hamdan Al Kamali and goalkeeper Adil Al Hosani helped the Korean player Mauricio Molina to give his side an early lead only four minutes into the game. The hosts exerted more efforts to level the score and it was the Brazilian striker Fernando Baiano who succeeded to net Al Wahda's only goal through a header in the 27th minute. But Sasa Ognenovski from Australia found the back of the net three minutes later with a perfect header off a flag kick three minutes later to end the first half with a 2-1 lead for the visitors.

The two squads continued their struggle after the break aiming to score more goals. Both came close in a number of occasions to hit the net but they failed. The Koreans were the best and dangerous side and their efforts were rewarded with two more goals through Choi Sung Kuk who scored the third goal in the 71st minute and Cho Dong Geon who secured the result for the Koreans nine minutes before the final whistle to earn Seongnam a berth in the semifinal match.