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Bani Yas held… Sharjah beat Kalba

An 87th minute goal scored by defender Ali Masari, saved the day for the home team Bani Yas as it helped them to come up with a 2-2 draw and snatch a valuable point in the encounter played tonight at their ground in Al Shamkha to stay in 2nd place in the table of the Etisalat Pro-League with 25 points. The visitors added one more point to raise their tally to 17 points that kept them in 7th place.

The visiting team Al Shabab surprised the hosts with an early goal netted by defender Essa Mohammed who sent a left footer that beat Bani Yas's goalkeeper Mohammed Ali Gholoom to give his squad a 1-0 lead. The home team missed the efforts of their two injured players Amer Abdul Rahman and Mohammed Fawzi as well as Omani player Fawzi Basheir due to a red card. Bani Yas depended on long balls sent to Sangahoor in the front line, but Al Shabab's defenders found no difficulty to clear the ball away from their defensive area. So their tactics did not help them to break the deadlock and level the score after Al Shabab defenders blocked the way on their face.

The home team made everything possible to net the equalizer but for their bad fortune all their efforts failed to hit the net. They continued launching lots of raids and their efforts were soon paid dividends when substitute Fareed Ismail collected the ball, advanced forward before launching a fierce volley into the net making it 1-1 in the 66th minute. But Bani Yas's joy did not live long and it soon came to an end two minutes later when Essa Obaid scored the second goal for the visitors with a perfect header to make it 2-1. The home team attacked their rivals heavily and put more pressure on their defense line but the visitors' defense stood solid on their way. With only three minutes to go, Ali Masari defender of the home team succeeded in scoring the equalizer. Bani Yas pressed for the winner afterwards but they lost a number of sitters in the last minutes to end the game with a 2-2 draw.

 In the first match of the concluding day of Round 12, Sharjah maintained their 5th victory in the Etisalat Pro-League Competition after beating visitors Kalba 3-1 to advance to 4th position with 18 points in the match played this evening at the winners' pitch. Kalba are still sitting at the bottom of the table with only 4 points, a situation which might complicate things for them as long as they are in the relegation zone. Both teams demonstrated a balanced display, exerted more efforts but could not find the net till one minute before the break when Esam Darweesh succeeded to put his side Sharjah in the lead to end the first session with a 1-0 win. Midfielder Nawaf Mubarak switched the ball off a free kick in front of the goal mouth which rebounded off the goalkeeper's hands for Darweesh to slam it home.

Gregory Dufrennes of Kalba came close to level the game in the 56th minute but Sharjah's goalie saved brilliantly. The visiting team made some good efforts and their hard work was rewarded when Mohammed Malalla made it 1-1 in the 74th minute with a perfect header capitalizing on the ball that switched by his teammate Simon Pierre Feindouno from Guinea from the right flank. But Simon collected his second yellow card two minutes latter for the referee to give him marching orders leaving his side to finish the match with ten players. The hosts were the better side following Simon's sent off and looked to attack their rivals all the way looking for the second goal while their opponents had to make every bit of work to stop them. Kalba were about to succeed in their tactics had not for defender Abul Kareem Awana committed an error inside the box when he brought Robinho down for a penalty. Robinho made no mistake off the spot kick sending the ball into the net to the right hand side of Kalba's custodian in the 80th minute. The home team came to score the third goal through Fahad Hadeed who received a lovely pass, advanced forward, rounded up three defenders and the goalkeeper as well before driving the ball into the empty net in the 90th minute scoring one of the best goals in the league so far.