JEDDAH, 26 November 2004 — Ittihad fired its Croatian coach Tomislav Ivic after the team lost against Korea’s Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma 3-1 in the first leg of the AFC Champions League final played at Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Stadium on Wednesday night.

Ittihad fans were not excited about the decision, although they described it as a “good decision that came too late.” Their new coach will be Amin Daboo, former Ahli player and coach and current coach for Ittihad’s youth team.

The Ittihad administration arrived at the decision after the disappointing performance of their team. Amin Daboo will coach Ittihad youth team for one week before finding another coach for them.

Meanwhile, Ittihad will be missing the services of their midfielders Chico and Khamees Al-Zahrani because of knee injuries. Ittihad fans gathered around their club President Mansour Al-Balawi after the match and demanded in chorus that the reckless players be punished and coach fired.

Ittihad players had to seek police help and protection to get into the bus after the match. Despite their presence, police could not prevent the large crowd of fans from throwing bottles and objects at the bus.

Ittihad Club Manager Hamad Al-Sunaie said that the tournament was not over with this loss and Ittihad still had the second leg of the final scheduled in Korea on Dec. 1. “I’m optimistic our team will win 3-0 in the second leg,” he said, adding that the results of the first leg surprised many.

Mustapha Abdulrahman, an Ittihad fan for 30 years, said, “It is not the end of the world. The loss is normal. Such things happen when you do not respect your opponents. I think Ittihad did not learn any lesson from the Japanese team Jubilo against which it played years ago. We lost in Japan 1-0. We thought we were going to play an easy match in Jeddah but performed poorly before home crowd. Our weaknesses were very much in evidence again. We missed too many chances, were overconfident and lacked physical fitness. All our players were out of breath by the end of the match. This is not the way to win a championship.”