Lekhwiya’s Sebastian Soria celebrates after scoring the opening goal of the match against Al Hilal of Saudi Arabia during their Group C AFC Champions League match in Doha yesterday. PICTURE: Mamdouh
By Joseph Koraith/Doha
If there was ever a best indicator of a team’s mettle, it would be their performance in a crunch match. A pressure match where only a win would do. And yesterday, Lekhwiya showed that they had a lot of character. Playing in a crucial AFC Champions League match against Saudi Arabia’s Al Ittihad at the Abdullah Bin Khalifa Stadium in Doha, the home side emerged victorious with a 2-0 scoreline.
Before this match, Lekhwiya had yet to register a win in Group C and were languishing at the bottom of the table. But this win now sees them leap to second in the standings and strongly help their chances to progress to the next round.
“This is what we needed. We needed a victory and we got it. But what pleases me most was that apart from the win, we had a lot of good moments in the game,” said Lekhwiya coach Eric Gerets after the match yesterday.
In their last match against Tractorsazi Tabriz, Lekhiwya were guilty of starting slowly against a side that was not the strongest of opponents. But yesterday, the Qatari side came bursting out of the blocks and dominated the game. There were hardly any moments in the first half when the ball even ventured into the Lekhwiya half.
And this control of the game yielded the first goal. In the 21st minute Luiz Martin fired in a long range shot which hit an Ittihad defender and lobbed up in the air. Sebastian Soria showed great presence of mind to wrestle the ball away from the defender, turn and fire a low shot into the far corner of the goal with his back to the goalkeeper. A perfect striker’s goal that had the crowd in raptures.
In the 27th minute Ittihad had a chance of their own when Abdul Fattah Asiri made a good run into the Lekhwiya box with the ball but then used the leg of a Lekhwiya defender to fall over and look for a penalty. The referee wasn’t interested.
There were some moments towards the end of the first half when the Ittihad team were able to make some inroads but all in all, it was a very strong half for Lekhwiya. A start which made coach Gerets a happy man.
“We had a long talk yesterday and even before the game today about starting the game strongly. My players showed me that I can have full confidence in them in the way they started the game and controlled the first half,” the Belgian said.
In the second half it was the Saudi team who came out charged up and keen to get the equaliser. But the Lekhwiya defenders were able to hold the fort.
And then came the moment of the match which will have both sets of supporters debating for quite some time to come. In the 77th minute, Ittihad skipper Hamad al-Montashari was adjudged to have brought down Luiz Martin in the box and Lekhwiya had a penalty which Nam Tae-Hee duly converted to give the home side a 2-0 lead. Ittihad players protested the decision for a long time but the referee had already made the call. So incensed was al-Montashari that his continual protests saw him get a second yellow card and was sent off.
Ittihad assistant coach Ahmed Zaid said that that penalty was not the right decision and it stopped his team from getting the draw they deserved. “It was not a fair result. That penalty changed the entire tone of the match. It was a wrong decision and that affected our players. We should have come out of this match with at least a 1-1 draw,” said Zaid after the match.
But that would be pushing the reality too far since, while the penalty could be debated, Lekhwiya were clearly the better team. They had a possession share of 62 per cent, controlled the game and had the better chances.
“In the second half, we could see the quality of Ittihad but finally we think that there’s no debate that we had the merits to win the game,” said Gerets.
And so Lekhwiya players leave with three well-deserved points in the bag. The only sour point for them is the injury to their striker Soria who got a knock on the knee and had to be substituted. Soria was to the hospital and once the results are out, the extent of the injury, if any, will be known.
But for now Lekhwiya players can believe that they can progress to the next round. “If we had not won this game, we could have forgotten about going into the next round. Now we can show that we can do something special,” said Gerets.
Rayyan lose in Riyadh
Despite pumping in three goals in the first half and holding a 3-2 lead going into halftime, Al Rayyan lost 3-4 to Al Shabab of Saudi Arabia in the Group A match in Riyadh yesterday.
The result meant that Manuel Jimenez’s side are now third in the group with three points, behind UAE’s Al Jazira and Al Shabab.
Shabab’s Majed al-Marshadi troubled the scorers in the third minute itself before Rayyan’s Kalu Uche and Sayaf Mohsin put the Qatari side ahead in the ninth and 18th minute respectively.
While Shabab skipper and midfielder Ahmed Ateef equalised in the 22nd minute, Nigerian forward Uche scored his second four minutes from the break to help his side take the lead.
After the break, the Saudis looked like they meant business and their efforts paid off within eleven minutes. Brazilian midfielder Rafinha first equalised in the 48th minute before scoring once more eight minutes later.
