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Al Dhafra stun Saham 6-1 to top the standings

Al Dhafra maintained a stunning 6-1 win over visitors Saham of Sultanate of Oman in the GCC League and Cup Championship match played this evening at Hamdan Bin Zayed Stadium in the Western Region. The hosts revived their hopes to go further in the competition after collecting three valuable points that see them on top of the second group on goal difference. They lost their opening game to Al Arabi of Qatar by a solitary goal and now both teams have three points each.

The Qatari side will travel to Oman to face Saham on April 4 in the third round before they come to UAE to take on Al Dhafra on April 19 in the 4th round.

The hosts put more pressure on their rivals defense from the word go forcing them to retreat back relying only on counter attacks. Ghareeb Harib ghosted into the penalty area and drove the ball home capitalizing on Boris Kabi's perfect header in front of the goal only 21 minutes into the encounter.

 Kabi made it 2-0 when he collected the ball outside the box, rounded two defenders before launching a strong shot that went straight into the net giving his side a 2-0 lead before half time.

 Kabi made things difficult for the visiting team when he scored the third goal five minutes after restart. Abbas Moya slammed the fourth goal four minutes later, Mohammed Salim netted the 5th in the 59th minute and Moya came again to seal the result for the home team when he scored the 6th goal in the 63rd minute. The Omani players made some good attempts and their efforts yielded a consolation goal through their Brazilian player Rafael Di Silva 8 minutes to the final whistle.

The Bahraini referee Salah Al Abbasi gave marching orders to Saham's player Ahmad Al Biraiki for tough play along with Juma'a Al Khaldi the Omani team's coach for bad conduct.

Dubai-based Al Shabab continued the positive results maintained by UAE teams in the GCC Clubs Championship when they started their march tonight beating Al Salmiyah of Kuwait at Thamer Stadium with a solitary goal. The Chilean player Carlos Villanueva scored the all-important goal of the match seven minutes after the break off a penalty kick. Al Shabab and Al Refah of Bahrain are sitting on top of group "A" with three points each while Al Salmiyah are staying at the bottom of the table after losing twice from both Al Shabab and Al Refah. Al Shabab's midfielder Hassan Ibrahim was shown the red card only four minutes to time.