Nasr stay in the race

Dubai - Jazira crash out with a defeat in Saudi Arabia

Al Nasr improved their chances of making it to the AFC Champions League Round of 16 for the first time in their history after they played out goalless draw against Saudi Arabia's Al Ittihad at the Al Maktoum Stadium, late on Wednesday night.
The result took the Blue Wave to seven points, one point behind Group A leaders Lokomotiv of Uzbekistan, who beat Iran's Foolad Mobarakeh Sepahan in Tashkent. For Al Ittihad, back-to-back winners in 2004 and 2005, qualification looks bleak after the Saudi Arabian side logged three points from three drawn games. They are yet to register a win after losing to Al Nasr 2-1 in the first leg in Jeddah.
While two UAE clubs - Al Ain and Al Nasr enhanced their hopes of progressing to the next round, Al Jazira's journey in the Asian competition came to an end after suffering a third defeat. The Abu Dhabi club, who had a draw and two losses to show prior to this, went down by a solitary goal to Saudi Arabia's Al Hilal, at the Prince Faisal bin Fahd Stadium in Riyadh.
Ailton scored the winner as Al Hilal jumped to eight points from four fixturs, a point behind Group C toppers Tractorsazi Tabriz of Iran
"The match was very hard because we played against an organised side who played with a defensive strategy and that relied on counter attacks," Al Nasr coach Ivan Jovanovic said after the game. "We controlled proceedings in the middle of the field but we didn't take advantage of our dominance. We wanted to get a victory tonight and get the three points but we failed to achieve our target. We have to work in the last two matches and hopefully we will perform as well as we did tonight," he added.
Meanwhile, Al Ittihad coach Victor Piturca rued the poor start in the competition but added that they weren't out of the tournament just yet. "We came here to win but we missed many scoring chances which could have given us a good victory," said Piturca. "In general I'm satisfied with the performance of the players and what they showed tonight. We didn't have a good start to the competition this year as we dropped several points and this has affected us. We still have a chance, mathematically speaking, and we will try our best to get two victories from the two next matches," he added.
The result and Al Ittihad's fortunes could have been completely different had Gelmin Rivas had been on target with 20 minutes left on the clock. That proved to be a costly miss for Al Ittihad, who finished the game with 10 men after captain and defender Ahmed Asiri was sent off following a second booking after he had fouled Salem Saleh.
Meanwhile, Al Hilal's Ailton headed home on 36 minutes to push Al Jazira towards the exit.
"I'm happy with the performance of our players against Al Hilal despite the defeat," Al Jazira coach Henk ten Cate said. "We had a good performance in the first half and we surprised our opponents but we couldn't score from the chances that we created in the early minutes. We tried our best to make a comeback but we lacked the necessary experience and fighting spirit to level the scores. In general, I'm happy with the performance of the players and hopefully we can learn from the lessons of tonight," he added.
Meanwhile, Al Hilal coach Georgios Donis was satisfied with the performance but felt there was room for improvement. "The win is very important for us and I'm satisfied with the performance of the players," said Donis.
"Everyone knows that we are going through a tough period and we have a lot of pressure due to the heavy match schedule. We created many scoring chances but we couldn't convert those chances into goals and this affected us a lot. We should try our best in order to fix this issue and hopefully we can improve in the next matches," he added.
james@khaleejtimes.com