Jaraaf Club, the league champions from Senegal, secured an easy 2-0 win against the Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Department (ADWED) in their first match of the Rashid Bin Mohammad International Football Championship at the Dubai Police Officers stadium on Tuesday night.
Despite arriving barely 24 hours before the kickoff, the Senegal players showed better soccer sense.
The visitors opened the scoring through Papa Bakary in the very first minute of play.
Even before the ADWED players had a chance to take their positions, Bakary was at hand to tap in from close range off the first move of the game to give Jaraaf the lead.
"That early first goal scored by Jaraaf made things difficult for us," admitted Mohammad Gharbawy, the ADWED coach.
"And the second goal took the match away from us," he added. "However, we hope to play better in the coming match."
The early goal helped Jaraaf dominate the match and create more attacks, thus putting the ADWED defence under pressure for a major part of the match.
They could have added two more early goals, had Mame Cheikh and Mohamadou Traore not wasted easy scoring chances.
However Cheikh made amends in the 22nd minute when he sent in a crisp left-footer after receiving the ball from the left from Cire Dia.
Playing with Oman's Fawzi Basheer and Egyptian Ebrahim Saeed, ADWED tried their best to at least pull back a goal, only to see the Jaraaf defence hold out.
ADWED had a golden opportunity in the 27th minute when a Mohammad Martin cracker was tipped over by Jaraaf goalkeeper Papa Dieng for an abortive corner.
Honours were more even in the second half with ADWED failing to breach the strong Jaraaf defence marshalled by Bou Sy, Jean Marie Louis and Abdoulahat Sylla.
"Our players were tired due to the long journey from Dakar to Dubai. I don't think we showed our best form in today's match," stated Lamin Dieng, the Jaraaf coach.
Just two days before travelling to Dubai, Jaraaf lost 2-1 to Asdouanes in the Senegal Cup final.
Jaraaf have won the Senegal league title a record 15 times and they are the current league champions.
Today's matches, at The Dubai Police Officers Stadium: (9 pm) Estighlal (Iran) v ADWED. (11 pm) Al Wahdat (Jordan) v Zambia.
Gulf News
