El Jaish’s Abdulrahman Abker (left) fights for the ball with Bunyodkor’s Pyshchur Oleksandr during their AFC Championship League match in Doha yesterday. (Reuters)
By Sports Reporter/Doha
It seemed Lady Luck wasn’t so pleased with El Jaish yesterday. They conceded two unlucky goals yesterday, the second one in the 93rd minute, to lose their AFC Champions League Group Stage match 1-2 to Bunyodkor and get booted out of the competition.
The match, played at the Abdullah Bin Khalifa Stadium in Doha, was for a spot in the Round of 16. Jaish, who were on eight points, before yesterday’s match needed only a draw to progress. Bunyodkar, on the other hand, had the difficult task of getting a win in order to make it to the pre-quarter-finals. Add to that the statistic that the previous time these two teams had met, Jaish had defeated the Uzbek club 2-1.
Jaish were dominating the possession right from the start but conceded the lead in a very comical but unlucky fashion. Bunyodkor in their search for a goal were regularly sending in long balls into the Jaish box and it was one of such deliveries that Jaish goalkeeper Ahmed Sufyan jumped up to collect. He gathered it cleanly but on his way down, his hands collided with the head of a Jaish defender and the ball bounced out. The first Bunyodkor attempt was cleared by Jaish but the rebound fell kindly to Sergiy Symonenko who didn’t make a mistake. This 13th minute goal meant that Jaish now needed to score to stay in the competition.
Jaish continued their attack despite the goal and Mohamed Muntari got a couple of close chances but couldn’t convert. The first half ended with the Uzbek club in the lead. But Jaish had finished with 67 per cent of the possession. The Qatar club were dominating the match but couldn’t get the final touch.
But that changed in the 51st minute when Muntari produced a brilliant goal to level the match. Muntari took a long ball on his chest, let it bounce and then turned and hit it into the bottom left corner. A great finish that made coach Jaish Nabil Maaloul very happy.
After that the match settled into a lull with Jaish controlling most of the possession and Bunyodkor trying to attack on the counter. The script continued till the 93rd minute when another long ball into the Jaish box saw a desperate clearance by Rami Fayez hit teammate Anderson Martins and Bunyodkor’s Sardor Rashidov was there to fire in the shot. Jaish players were left shell-shocked at the turn of events but would rue not pushing for goals in the second half. The Qatar club finished with 60 per cent of the possession in the match but that didn’t count for anything in the end. Both teams ended on equal points and equal goal difference but Bunyodkor has scored seven goals as compared to Jaish’s six. And that gave the Uzbek side the second spot in Group B and Jaish was demoted to third. Muntari was in tears after the match as his brilliant effort counted for nothing.
In the other match, involving Qatar, a second-half brace from Boubacar Kebe and a goal from Mohammad Ghazi gave Esteghlal a 3-1 victory over Al Rayyan yesterday. Rayyan who had already been knocked out of the tournament finished in last place in their group.
