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Al Shaab 1-4 Al Wasl: Another away win for the Cheetahs

Al Wasl recorded another impressive win on the road, beating Al Shaab 4-1 at the Khaled bin Mohamed Stadium in Round 3 of the Arabian Gulf League on Saturday night. Goals from Donda, Fahad Hadeed, Andre Senghor and Maher Jassim secured another three away points for Laurent Banide’s side as Al Shaab slumped to their third successive defeat.

Following the pattern of all the day’s games, it didn’t take long for the deadlock to be broken as Al Wasl moved into an early 1-0 lead in the 6th minute. The visitors were awarded a penalty following a pull on Andre Senghor’s shirt in the area, and whilst Mariano Donda’s initial spot kick was saved down the middle by Nasser Masood, the Argentinian made sure to follow up and convert the rebound. Al Shaab’s attempts to respond were consistently thwarted by Dida in the Al Wasl goal, who sprang between the posts to save a 40-yard cannonball of a shot from Ibrahim Abdulla in the 27th minute, and came out bravely to deny Quirino with his feet three minutes later. Dida was again the hero in the 33rd minute, flying to make a fingertip save and turn Michael Laurent N’dri’s effort away to preserve Al Wasl’s 1-0 lead at the half time break.

Straight from the restart, however, Dida was picking the ball out of the back of his net after Mohammed Malalla cut inside to hammer home an Al Shaab equaliser in the 46th minute. But the visitors didn’t allow the equaliser to knock them back and soon Al Wasl took the lead again in the 62nd minute. Khalifa Abdulla’s ball found Fahad Hadeed, who showed great strength to beat two defenders and finish with a composed left-footed shot into the bottom corner. In the 80th minute Fahad Hadeed turned provider as his cross was missed by Al Shaab’s goalkeeper, and Andre Senghor was in place to hook the ball into the net with an overhead kick, making it 3-1. In injury time, substitute Mohamed Naser went painfully close to adding a fourth for Al Wasl but his inviting cross-come-shot rolled painstakingly across the face of goal, but moments later Maher Jassim did manage to make it 4-1, slotting the ball under the body of Al Shaab goalkeeper Nasser Masood from a tight angle to round off a resounding away victory.