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‘Still a long road ahead’

Al Jazira, who had run up a 3-0 lead, eventually ended a nervy 3-2 winners over Qatari club Al Rayyan in the Group A fixture of the Asian club competition at the Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium on Tuesday night.

Ricardo Oliveira, captain Ibrahim Diaky and Abdulla Mousa scored for the defending UAE Pro-League champions.

With six points in the bag, Junior reckoned they still need another four points to make it to the next stage of the competition.

“I told the players that it was for the first time in history that we have six points from two games. It gives us confidence. But we haven’t qualified yet. We need 10 points,” said Junior.

And the Brazilian paid tribute to his captain Ibrahim Diaky, saying that he was one of the finest midfielders he had ever worked with. Diaky was coming back from suspension and it was the first time that he played under Junior. Junior said that Diaky was more effective in the middle.

“For me, Diaky is one of the main midfielders I can work with and he should be in the middle. He is one of the finest midfielders I have ever worked with. He played and excellent match tonight. Slowly, I’m implementing my ideas and it is working,” he said.

He said that the key was confidence but added that they still need to improve their fitness levels. “The most important thing is we are getting back the confidence. We have two wins in a row after I came. But the fitness levels still needs to improve. We still have a long season ahead. It is clear that we face fitness problems and we are trying to solve it. We believe this evolution will come over time. I don’t want to go deep into that issue because we have to respect the work of the previous coach. We have to work on the issues and look forward to the League,” Junior said.

And he added that he was a coach and not a magician and said that they have to work slowly to reduce the mistakes. “I’m a football coach, not a magician. And we have to work slowly to reduce the mistakes. We have a game almost every three days. But I can see positive points from each game. And we need to work more,” he said.

About the game against Al Rayyan, Junior said: “I was imagining a difficult match and a high quality game. And I know Al Rayyan. They are very strong offensively. We managed to score three goals but Al Rayyan fought back with two goals. We could have scored a fourth but they could have scored a third. They attacked a lot more towards the end.”

james@khaleejtimes.com