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Ajman surprise Al Ahli with a 3-1 victory

Ajman made a big surprise when they overcame Dubai-based Al Ahli 3-1in the first round match of the Etisalat Cup Competition played this evening at their home pitch.

It took the winners only 12 minutes from the word go before they take the lead via Waleed Ahmad who capitalized on the dead ball switched by the Moroccan player Kareem Karkar into the goal mouth for Waleed to deflect it into the net. The hosts played brilliantly afterwards making many attempts to add the second goal. But Al Ahli's Brazilian midfielder JaJa  leveled the score with a lovely volley off a stand ball that went straight into the right hand corner six minutes later. The two teams exerted some good efforts to hit the back of the net with Al Ahli taking superiority over the home team. The duo Brazilians JaJa and Graffiti of Al Ahli lost two sitters in the 35th and 36th minutes respectively. Both teams could not benefit from the rare chances that came their way in the last minutes to end the first session with a 1-1 draw.

 Ajman repeated the cenario of the first session to take the lead two minutes after the breather through Olivera who received a lovely pass from Ibrahima Toure .The hosts launched a number of forays but failed to score. At the time, Al Ahli's Czech coach Hasek decided to strengthen his front line by fielding on striker Faisal Khalil, he missed the efforts of the other front liner Ismail Al Hamadi who was shown the red card in the 76th minute. Ali Khamis the dynamic player of Ajman came close to make it 3-1 in the 78th minute, but his strong shot hit the cross bar and flew away. Karkar, the man of the match, squandered a sitter two minutes before the final whistle when he faced the goalkeeper Obeid Al Taweela who saved bravely. But his teammate Ibrahima Toure came to compensate for the lost chance off a nice pass from Karkar to net the third goal ending the game with a 3-1 victory for Ajman.