Khrbin brace lifts Dhafra past Sharjah

Sharjah - Western Knights move up to eighth place as Sharjah remain in bottom four

By Clareto Monsorate

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Published: Fri 8 Apr 2016, 8:33 PM

Last updated: Fri 8 Apr 2016, 10:34 PM

Sharjah have some soul-searching to do after 'The King' went down by two goals to Al Dhafra in the second round of the Arabian Gulf League at the Sharjah Club on Friday.
Two players - Omar Khrbin and Abdulla Sultan -- played havoc with the home side. The first, a striker par excellence who netted a goal in each half for Dhafra, and the latter, a cool and composed goalkeeper, who showed a safe pair of gloves, thwarting anything the Sharjah strikers threw at him.
With only four matches remaining in the League for both teams now, Sharjah are fourth from bottom in the standings and could face relagtion, while the victory has pushed The Western Knights to eighth position.
Sharjah could have fallen behind as early as the second minute. Walid Ahmed mistook Dhafra's Omar Khrbin to be his teammate and unintentionally passed the ball to him. It could have proven costly as Khrbin found Ali Ibrahim on the left flank. Ibrahim covered a lot of ground and on reaching the touchline passed it back to Khrbin.
Placed nicely at the top of the box and with only Rashid Ahmed manning the goal, Khrbin had a clear look at the net and in a jiffy dinked the ball to the goalkeeper's left but Sharjah should consider themselves fortunate as the ball kissed the post and went out.
If Lady Luck smiled on them early on, there was no such luck when Khrbin found the net in the 14th minute. Collecting the ball somewhere near the 25 yard mark, the tall forward found the right corner of the net to leave the Sharjah defenders and goalkeeper Ahmed baffled.
Down a goal, the home team started to assert themselves and Muhain Khalifa, Ricardo and Wanderley Santos tested Abdulla Sultan with some long range shots but the Dhafra goalkeeper was equal to the task with timely interceptions, clearances and collections.
Frustration build up at Sharjah's end as the match lost momentum and it didn't take long for Walid Ahmed to be shown a yellow card for a sliding tackle on Ahmed Ali in the Sharjah territory. From the free-kick Dharfra earned a corner and Adil Hermach almost doubled the lead with a powerful header which went a little wide.
Minutes later Dhafra captain Abdulrahim Jumaa was booked for bringing down Wanderley Santos.
Sharjah had a chance to draw parity in injury time of the first half after Dhafra goalkeeper Abdulla Sultan punched away a free-kick. The ball landed at Muhain Khalifa's boot and after his first attempt deflected off a defender he had another shy which went skidding past the post.
Sharjah must have rued not taking the few chances that came their way in the first session although Sultan stood tall in the Dhafra goal.
The same could not be said of his opposite number who was having a harrowing time in the Sharjah goal. Ahmed was beaten hands down, again by Khrbin. The tall striker brought his experience to use when he found the gap between two defenders to beat the hapless goalkeeper.
A despondent Sharjah coach Abdelaziz Alyassi speaking at the post-match Press conference said: "I am totally disappointed with this defeat. I cannot accept the way my team played today.
"We tried hard to fix our problems but I can't single out or fault any player for the defeat."
On the other hand Dhafra coach Mohamad Kwid seemed very pleased with his team's performance. "The three weeks break we had during the League enabled us to prepare well."
He agreed that both teams played well but it was "Khrbin who made the difference".
clareto@khaleejtimes.com


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