Al Ain striker, Moroccan Sofiane Rahimi, is now one goal away from being the all-time top scorer for Al-Zaeem in the AFC Champions League, after he tied with Ghanaian Asamoah Gyan and Omar Abdel-Rahman (Amouri) with 18 goals each.
Rahimi scored the equalizer for Al Ain against Pakhtakor, the day before yesterday, in the match that ended in a positive 1-1 draw in the sixth round of the AFC Champions League for the Elite, raising his tally of goals in the current edition of the tournament to five goals, occupying third place in the ranking list. The competition’s top scorer, behind the Korean Gwangju FC striker, Jasir Asani, and the Japanese Yokohama FC Marinos player, Anderson Lopez.
Rahimi scored three goals (hat-tricks) against Al-Hilal of Saudi Arabia, one goal against Al-Gharafa of Qatar, and one goal against Pakhtakor of Uzbekistan.
The Moroccan striker topped the list of scorers in the last edition of the AFC Champions League with 13 goals, distributed among several teams, as he scored two goals against Al-Ahal Al-Turkmani, two goals against Al-Fayhaa of Saudi Arabia, one goal against Nessaf Qureshi of Uzbekistan, and three goals against Al-Nasr Saudi Arabia in the quarter-finals. The same went for Al Hilal in the semi-final, and two goals against Yokohama of Japan in the final.
Sufyan Rahimi played with Al Ain in 19 matches in the AFC Champions League over two seasons, and contributed to 21 goals, including 18 goals he scored alone, while he made three goals.
For his part, Sufyan Rahimi stressed that his joy with the personal records he recorded with Al Ain, whether in the AFC Champions League or by competing for the best scorer in the world, was not complete, as he hoped that the joy would be coupled with ensuring Al Ain’s qualification to the second round of the Elite League.
He said in press statements after the Pakhtakor match: “Unfortunately, we lost a draw, contrary to the course of the match, as we were the better side, and we missed many opportunities that would have been enough for us to get the three points, despite the difficult circumstances we were exposed to, whether by the expulsion of Yahya Nader after 55 minutes.” A minute into the match, the poor pitch of the match field, and the difficult weather condition, and despite these difficulties we gave our best, and luck abandoned us in a strange way.”
He added: “Such confrontations are played on small details, but unfortunately all the circumstances were against us, but we promise our fans that the two remaining matches we have in the Elite League against Al-Rayyan of Qatar and Al-Shorta of Iraq will be played with the aim of winning.”
He pointed out: “We will come back stronger than we were in the last period. We have duels every three days in the league championship, and we hope that our fans will be behind us to overcome the difficult period.”
. Sofiane Rahimi raised his tally to 18 goals in the AFC Champions League, equal to Gyan and Amouri.
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