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Al Ain harden Kalba 6-0 to retain league leadership

Al Ain continued their winning streak to retain their league leadership with a record of 19 points following their six straight goals win over lowly Ittihad Kalba in the Etisalat Pro League 8th round game held tonight at Tahnoun bin Mohammed in Al Ain. The losers, who played below the par in this game, are in the penultimate position with only three points. It was a one side match as Al Ain dominated the entire time and could even score more goals after squandering a bagful of chances especially in the opening minutes through Mohand Al Anzy, Asamoah Gyan and Omer Abdulrahman. Kalba’s goalkeeper Mohammed Osman demonstrated a brilliant display when he denied the hosts’ front liners a number of scoring sitters.

Al Ain’s full right back Mohammed Ahmed put his side into the lead two minutes before the break with a severe left footer and his team mate Omer Abdulrahman added the second in the last minute of the first session capitalizing on a defensive blunder to end the first half with a 2-0 lead.

It was only eight minutes into the second session before Omer Abdulrahman succeeded to net the third goal and Mohammed Ahmad struck his second personal goal to make it 4-0 three minutes later. Gyan raised the tally to five goals off the stand ball switched by Khalid Abdulrahman in the 65th into the six yard area and Ekoko concluded the rout with a superb volley in the 79th minute to make it 6-0. The two teams went on their attempts but they could not score till the final whistle.

In the second game of the day, Al Dhafra and Dubai shared the points of their match at Hamdan bin Zayed Stadium in the Western Region for the hosts to take their balance to 10 points to stay in 9th place while Dubai are in sixth spot with 13 points. The Omani International Fawzi Basheir scored the first goal to give the home team a 1-0 lead in the 50th minute and Ahmad Malalla levelled the scores five minutes to time. Al Dhafra’s defender Hassan Zahran was red carded three minutes into the injury time.