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Two decisive games in the Etisalat Cup Semifinals

 

The two Etisalat Cup seminfinal matches will be played this Thursday, March10th, when Al Shabab take on Al Wahda at Tahnoun Bin Mohammed Stadium in Qattara, Al Ain at 5:40, followed by Al Ain versus Al Wasl at Al Nahyan Stadium in Al Wahda Club, Abu Dhabi at 8:30pm. The two teams that emerge winners on Thursday will then move into the Final, for which a date will be determined later.

Three of the teams taking part in tomorrow's matches (Al Wasl, Al Shabab and Al Wahda)  have also qualified in the top four of the President's Cup Competition. The only exception is Al Ain who have not performed well this season and are left with only one local title with the Etisalat Cup to fight for. However none of the four remaining Etisalat Cup teams have much hope of competing for the Etisalat Pro-League crown this season, as the nearest of them is lying 15 points behind leaders Al Jazira, while Al Ain are struggling to avoid relegation.

All four squads will be missing some of their key players tomorrow night due to injury, suspension and participation with the UAE U-23 Olympic National Football Team who are facing Sir Lanka in the preliminary stage of the London 2012 Olympic qualifiers.

Al Ain and Al Shabab teams qualified for the Etisalat Cup semifinals after finishing top of group "A" and "B" in the preliminary phase. Both by Al Wahda and Al Wasl finished runners-up of the two groups.

Al Ain players have moved to their two-day warm-up camp in Abu Dhabi after and they will conclude their preparations this evening with a last training session at Al Nahyan Stadium at 6.30pm They will miss the efforts of their newly-signed Romanian player Valentine who recently underwent a jaw operation, along with injured players Saif Mohammed and Musalam Fayez, as well as midfielder Omar Abdul Rahman who is currently on National duty. Al Ain lost their opener to Seoul of South Korea in the 2011 AFC Champions League and are planning to leave for Japan on Saturday morning to take on Nagoya Grampus in the second round match.  

Al Wasl will face Al Ain without their dynamic player Rashid Essa who is currently with  the UAE U-23  Olympic squad's warm-up camp in Abu Dhabi, along with his team mates Mohammed Jamal, Masoud Saeed and goalkeeper Rashid Ali. However Al Wasl will welcome back Brazilian Oliveira and Waheed Ismail to their squad as they have both recovered from injury, as well as Darweesh Ahmad, Ali Mahmoud and Tariq Hassan who are coming off suspension.

In the Al Wahda and Al Shabab match at 5.40pm in Al Ain, Al Wahda will be missing two players to the UAE Olympic team, defender Hamdan Al Kamali and goalkeeper Adil Al Hosani, in addition to their three injured key players Abdul Rahim Juma'a, Mahmoud Khamis and Hydar Alo Ali. Al Shabab will play without two UAE Olympic National team players Ahmad Mahmoud and Mohammed Ahmad. Al Shabab will then fly to Kuwait on Sunday, March 13th to face Al Salmiyah in their first GCC Championship game next Tuesday.