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Al Muharraq of Bahrain beat Al Wasl 5-4 in penalty shootout to win the GCC Clubs Championship trophy

 

Al Muharraq of Bahrain snatched their first GCC Clubs Championship title in their history following a 5-4 win over Dubai-based Al Wasl in penalty shootout in the second leg match of the Gulf Clubs Championship 2012 held this evening at Zabeel Stadium in Dubai. The visitors ended the official time with a 3-1 win to level the result of the to and fro matches to resort to penalty shootout for Al Muharraq to emerge winners with an 8-5 victory in aggregate. Sheikh Ahmed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum chairman of Al Wasl Club gave away the trophy to the winners.

The visiting team scored an early goal only ten minutes into play off a corner sent by Hussain Ali Pele for the Moroccan player Jamal Braro to head it home giving his side an early lead. Al Wasl's goalkeeper Majid Nasser was given marching orders for bad conduct for Al Wasl's Argentinean coach Diego Maradona to pull out Khalifa Abdullah and field in his first substitute goalie Rashid Ali.

The two teams played a balanced display afterwards creating some chances but failed to find the target. Al Wasl dominated the most parts of the first session giving their opponents hard time. Maryano Donda came close to bring the game back into parity when he sent a lovely shot but Al Muharraq's custodian Abdullah Al Kaabei  succeeded in tipping the ball over the cross bar for a corner one minute before the break. But it was Yasser Salim who leveled the score with a strong volley that went straight into the right hand side in the last minute to end the first half with a 1-1 draw.

Al Muharraq came to take the lead only six minutes after the breather when defender Waheed Ismail tried to clear the ball but he fell down for Ismail Abdullatif to collect it and went past the goalkeeper Rashid Ali before sending the ball into the empty net making it 2-1 for the visitors.

Inspired by their second goal, Al Muharraq's players doubled their efforts seeking for the third goal and their efforts were soon paid dividends when Saleh Abdul Hameed made it 3-1 with a strong shot off a stand ball in the 65th minute.

The visiting team started to press hard to force Al Wasl players to retreat back depending on counter attacks. Things became worse for Al Wasl when their player Rashid Essa was shown the red card for bad behavior ten minutes to time for the hosts to finish the game with nine players. 

The Bahraini side created a number of scoring opportunities in the last minutes but could not add more goals with their opponents relying heavily on defensive tactics for the two squads to end the game with a 3-1 in favor of the visiting team and resort to penalty shoot-out.

Hussain Ali, Mahmoud Abdul Rahman, Rashid Al Dosari, Ismail Abdul Latif and Sayed Mahmoud Jalal scored for Al Muharraq while their teammate Saleh Abdul Hameed failed to score. Al Wasl scored via Olivera, Donda, Essa Rashid and Darweesh Ahmed and squandered two penalty kicks through Mercier and Mubarak Hassan.