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Emirates lose to Zoba Han and keep their hopes alive

UAE Emirates team narrowed their chance for qualifying to the 16 stage of the 2011 AFC Champions League after losing to visiting team Zoba Han of Iran by a lone goal in their round 5 match played tonight at the losers' ground. The Emirates played without a number of their key players especially Mustafa Saeed who was shown the red card against Al Shabab of Saudi Arabia, Nabil Al Dawoodi due to injury and Hadif Saeed who have collected two yellow cards.

Emirates did not play well in the first half giving a chance to their competitors to put more pressure on them in a match marred by tough and nervous performance from both sides. They made every bit of work to come out with a win and add more three points to their tally, and if their dreams were true, they would have qualified directly to the next stage irrespective of their last game against Al Rayyan of Qatar in the sixth round.

The Iranian team have already qualified to the next stage after collecting 10 points from three games before facing Emirates this evening. Today's win put them on top of Group "D" with  13 points and they still have one more game when they host Al Shabab of Saudi Arabia. Kareem Karkar and Adnan Hussain did not demonstrate good technical standard after losing some scoring opportunities while their teammate Ahmad Shadi the goalkeeper played brilliantly saving a number of dangerous forays launched by the visiting squad's players.

The two teams played a balanced game after the break which was full of hard work and variety of attacking and defensive tactics. The hosts recovered in the second session, creating a number of scoring chances but they lost all their attempts. Moreover Zoba Han's goalkeeper made superb saves to deprive the Emirates' players from benefiting of all the chances that came their way.

Mohammad Kazam Ghazy scored the all-important goal of the match in the 79th minute when he collected the ball inside the box, moved forward before driving it home to the right hand side to give his side a 1-0 victory.