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Al Jazira draw 1-1 with Esteghlal to qualify to AFC last 16 stage

 

The UAE Football Team Al Jazira were held to a 1-1 draw by their Iranian counterpart Esteghlal in their 2012 AFC Champions League 4th round match played tonight at Mohammed Bin Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi. His Highness Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of the Presidential affairs, Chairman of Al Jazira Club met with the Al Jazira players prior to the match kick off. He boosted the morals of the players asking them to play the game irrespective of their leadership to Group "A".

The hosts are currently sitting on top of Group "A" with 10 points after emerging winners in all last three matches and they qualified to the AFC last 16 stage regardless of the outcome of their last two matches against Al Rayyan and Nasaf, followed by Al Rayyan of Qatar with 6 points who moved to second position following their 1- 0 over the Uzbek team Nasaf. Esteghlal are in third place with five points and Nasaf Qarshi are classified at the bottom of the table with only one point.

Al Jazira were bolstered by their key Australian defender Lucas Neil who missed the away leg in the third round played recently in Tehran due to suspension along with Argentinean Delgado and Subait Khatir who did not play against Al Shabab in the last round of the Etisalat Pro League match.

The hosts played with a 4-2-3-1 tactics with Brazilian Bare spearhead the attacks while the visiting team applied a 4-4-1-1 tactics with Arsh Borhani leading the front line.

The two teams could not create any scoring chances in the first 20 minutes for Oliveira to lose the first sitter for the hosts in the 21st minute when he went past the Iranian goalkeeper Mahdi Rahmati but failed to score. The visitors looked the better and most organized side after succeeded in reaching Ali Khsaif's goal off and on. They took the lead in the 24th minute through the unmarked Arsh Borhani who received a nice pass inside the box and did not hesitate to drive the ball into the right hand side capitalizing on a severe defensive blunder.

 In spite of making good efforts in the last minutes, but Al Jazira failed to find the target ending the first session with a 1-0 victory for the Iranian side.

Saleh Basheir replaced Abdullah Mousa from the beginning of the second half who felt a sudden back pain and Khalid Sabeel brought in to substitute Salim Masaud in the 62nd minute. The hosts doubled their efforts and their work was soon rewarded when Brazilian Ricardo Oliveira scored the equalizer in the 63rd minute with a perfect header off Delgado's corner kick.

Inspired by Oliveira's goal, Al Jazira pressed hard with all the hope to add more goals. Both squads made every bit of effort to score the winner but could not find the back of the net in spite of the scoring chances they had created to end the game with a 1-1 draw.