Shabab Al-Ahly won the Emaar Super Cup after defeating Al-Wasl yesterday, on penalties, 4-1, after regular time ended in a positive draw, 2-2, at Al Maktoum Stadium in Dubai.
Al-Wasl participated in this match as champion of the ADNOC Professional League last season, and champion of the President’s Cup, while Shabab Al-Ahly played this match as runner-up in the league last edition. This is the second time in a row that Shabab Al-Ahly won the championship title, and the seventh in its history, noting that Al-Wasl had not been able to win the title before.
The team of Portuguese coach Paulo Sousa succeeded in taking the lead with two goals thanks to Guilherme Bala (45 + 2) and Luka Milvojevic (53), before Al Wasl turned the tables and equalized through Nicolas Jimenez (58) and Fabio Lima (90 + 7).
Penalty kicks smiled for the first time at Shabab Al-Ahly in the Super Final, after they had lost the title on three occasions in this way.
The match started quickly between the two sides, with Al Wasl having a relative advantage thanks to the movements of its two stars, Fabio Lima and Ali Saleh, from the sides.
After timid attempts by both sides, the most prominent opportunity came from Al Wasl in the 19th minute, when Sofiane Bouftini managed to score against Shabab Al Ahly with a header, but the Polish referee, Simon Marciniak, canceled the goal due to an error on the part of Al Wasl’s defender against Saeed Suleiman.
The excitement reached its peak in the stoppage time of the first half, as Al-Wasl players demanded a penalty kick, after Shabab Al-Ahly player Luka Milvojevic pushed the ball away with his hand inside the box, but the referee indicated that the game was awarded a corner kick, without intervention from the “mouse.”
Shabab Al-Ahly quickly launched a quick counterattack, in which the ball reached Serdar Azmoun, who passed it towards Guilherme Bala, and the latter shot it into the goal with his left hand, scoring the first goal.
Many expected a strong reaction from Al-Wasl at the start of the second period to adjust the result, but Shabab Al-Ahly was able to score another goal through Luka Milvojevic, who rose to Cartabia’s cross and put it past goalkeeper Khaled Al-Sanani.
But Al-Wasl did not surrender to the loss, and Nicolas Jimenez was able to bring the score closer, unaware of Shabab Al-Ahly’s defense, to turn the ball played by Fabio Lima into the goal.
Shabab Al-Ahly tried to confront Al-Wasl’s offensive push, so all its players retreated to the back areas, and gaps appeared again in Al-Wasl’s defense, with Yuri Cesar almost scoring a goal from a counterattack, had it not been for the intervention of goalkeeper Khaled Al-Sanani (68).
Immediately after that, Seferovic missed the opportunity for Al Wasl to equalize after he received a perfect distribution from his colleague Ali Saleh, while he was a few steps away from the goal, but he headed the ball over the crossbar (72).
Before the end, Al-Qaim prevented Shabab Al-Ahly from scoring the third goal with Guilherme Balla’s shot “90 + 4”, but Al-Wasl came back from afar with a penalty kick earned after returning to the “VAR” technique, which was successfully executed by Fabio Lima, so the two teams decided to go to penalty kicks, which smiled in favor of Shabab Al-Ahly. .
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