25 March 2010
BEIRUT: Al-Ahed failed to earn its first win of the AFC Cup drawing 1-1 with Syrian rivals Al-Jaish despite a confident and attacking performance at Beirut’s Camille Chamoun Stadium Tuesday.
Al-Ahed still lay at the bottom of Group C with only one point from three despite two of those being on home soil making qualification almost impossible, since Lebanese leaders are five points behind second place with only three games remaining.
Al-Jaish may no longer be the dominant team in Syria but it still possesses the pace and quality to hurt rivals, a fact Al-Ahed would have been well aware of from the start as it set out to strangle the Syrians into submission in the opening exchanges.
Both teams set up with similar 3-5-2 formations but the visitors left gaping holes down its right wing that were exploited from the start by the Lebanese league leaders.
At every attack Hussein Dakik sprinted in to the generous space afforded by Al-Jaish and then he nearly put Al-Ahed ahead in the second minute only to be adjudged offside despite evidence to the contrary.
Al-Ahed looked to peg Al-Jaish into its own half but the Syrians attacked with Chipeta Phillimon a particular threat given his lively movement and strong hold-up play.
On nine minutes, Mahmoud El Ali was released by a superb reverse pass by Hassan Maatouk down Al-Ahed’s right wing. The striker bore down on goal but could only graze the top of the crossbar when he should have at least hit the target.
With so many of Al-Ahed’s attacks coming from cross field passes aimed at Al-Jaish’s vacant right back spot. Al-Jaish’s Iraqi manager Ayob Od Barcham was forced to ask midfielder Ahmad al-Khaled to fill the gap.
That move allowed Al-Jaish to attack with a greater degree of assurance, facilitating its first shot on goal with deep-lying midfielder Yasr Akra going close with a 25 yard effort on 13 minutes.
Al-Ahed attacked with a confidence and poise not yet shown in what has been a disappointing AFC Cup, a point made clear by Abbas Atwi’s spectacular, if wayward, volley from 30 yards after a corner was cut back to the playmaker.
On 17 minutes, auxiliary right-back Khaled was caught ball watching when Fabio played a superb cross field ball to Dakik who penetrated the area before squaring across the goal mouth to Ali for his first goal of the competition.
Al-Ahed’s lead was deserved, if short-lived, when three minutes later a probing Al-Jaish attack was cleared to left winger Bwrhan Sahiwine, who lashed a sweet strike from the corner of the penalty area across the sprawling reach of Al-Ahed keeper Mohammad Hammoud.
Al-Ahed’s response was nearly as quick when Maatouk broke into the Al-Jaish penalty area almost straight from the kick off before pulling back to Ali, who could only hit the crossbar despite a clear route to goal.
Sahiwine was proving to be Al-Jaish’s biggest threat with a series of darting runs that had Al-Ahed chasing its own shadow at times. The winger went close on 32 minutes with an effort that was a near copy of his successful effort 10 minutes prior.
The riveting first half came to a close, but sadly much of the game’s best play finished with it.
The second half showed both sides cancelling one another out as they both became wise to each other’s tactical maneuvers.
Zambian Philamon could have won it late on for Al-Jaish but his powerful header struck the crossbar before he pounced on the rebound but his follow-up was denied by Al-Ahed goalkeeper Hammoud as honors ended even.
Elsewhere in the group, Kazma of Kuwait beat Nasaf in Uzbekistan 2-1 despite falling behind in the 38 minute when Ilkhom Shomurodov opened the scoring for Nasaf.
Aleksander Andic drew the visitor level on 64 minutes before Yousef Naser Alsulaiman scored the winner with 15 minutes remaining. Kazma sits on top of Group C with nine points while Nasaf falls to second place with six points having lost its first game of the campaign. Al-Jaish and Al-Ahed prop up the group with one point each at the half way point of the AFC Cup group stage.
Copyright The Daily Star 2010.
