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Dibba Al Fujairah beat Al Dhafra 3-2 to maintain their second league win

The bottom-placed team Dibba Al Fujairah made a good and successful start in the second part of the Etisalat Pro League after maintaining a hard fought 3-2 win over Al Dhafra in their round 15 match held tonight at Hamdan Bin Zayed Stadium in the Western Region. It was the second victory for Dibba Al Fujairah since the kick off of the league matches as they beat Al Wasl 2-1 in round 8. The winners raised their tally to 7 points, the same balance of Al Shaab and Ittihad Kalba, but they are still sitting at the bottom of the table on head-to-head matches, while Al Dhafra are 11th with 15 points.

Dibba Al Fujairah surprised the home team with an early goal scored by their Brazilian striker Luiz Fernando only 7 minutes into play who rounded up three defenders before sending the ball to the left hand side of the goalkeeper Khalid Al Sinani. This goal made the players of both teams more enthusiastic and pushed them up to demonstrate a brilliant and balanced performance. Dibba Al Fujairah’s  players retreated back afterwards to defend their narrow 1-0 lead depending on counter attacks and this tactics paved the way for the hosts to build up a bagful of chances but the strikers missed the target and failed to benefit off some easy sitters especially Makhete Diop.

Al Dhafra doubled their work and put more pressure on their rivals’ defense hoping to level the scores and come back to the game. They were about to make it when the referee awarded them a penalty in the 15th  minute when Saif Mohammed was fouled inside the box, but for their bad fortune Makhete Diop failed to score as his shot was saved by the goalie Mohammed Alrowaihy who deflected the ball to a coroner. The visitors were also given a similar penalty, but Luiz Fernando sent the ball far away in the 29th minute.

Both teams went on their attempts but all their efforts were in vain to end the first session with a 2-0 win in favor of Dibba Al Fujairah.

Al Dhafra’s players came after the break with high morals and new tactics which helped them to reduce the deficit only five minutes into the second half through Makhete Diop and the Omani midfielder Fawzi Basheir brought the game into parity when he headed home the ball switched by Mahmoud Gasim in the 62nd minute to make it 2-2. But Al Dhafra joy did not live long when Ahmad Rashid netted the winner for the visiting team in the 76th minute. Al Dhafra pressed hard in the last minutes but they could not find the target.