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Milla calls on Al Jazira to bring 3 points back from Qatar

Al Jazira head coach Luis Milla is keen to ensure his team is ready for their important third game of the AFC Champions League group stages, despite the short preparation time for the match. “We find ourselves in a similar position to El Jaish in the group, so we really must fight to get three points away from home in this game,” Milla said at his pre-match press conference. The Spaniard added that defender Juma Abdulla will miss out with an injury, whilst the Argentinian midfielder Matias Delgado is suspended following his sending off in the last game against Al Shabab of Saudi Arabia. “I think the game will be tough for both teams, despite El Jaish being new to the tournament. They have enthusiasm and a number of big names who are more than capable of making it a difficult task for us,” Milla stated. Also present at the press conference was young UAE national team striker Ali Mabkhout, who insisted that Al Jazira’s 3-2 loss at the hands of Al Wasl on Friday will not affect them going into the AFC Champions League match, as each tournament takes on a different significance. Mabkhout stressed the importance of putting in maximum effort for the game in order to come back to the UAE with three points.

 

El Jaish’s head coach Razvan Lucescu explained there is an extra importance to the game as the two teams will meet twice in 8 days, with the reverse fixture at Al Jazira coming as soon as next Wednesday 10th April, stating that if his side is able to take at least 4 points from the two games it will give them a good chance of qualifying from the group stages. “We enter the game in high spirits off the back of winning a major trophy in the form of the QNB Qatar Stars Cup last week, but we cannot forget that Al Jazira are a very good team with top quality players who have more experience of playing in this tournament than us,” the Romanian said, whilst also confirming that Korean midfielder Go Seul-Ki and Brazilian-born Qatari defender Marcone will miss out on the match through injury, along with Tunisian midfielder Mohammad Mothnani.