JEDDAH: Of the four Saudi clubs to qualify for the round of 16 in the AFC Champions League only Al-Ittihad was left standing.
Too bad, Ittihad had to advance to the quarterfinal at the expense of another Saudi side, Al-Shabab. In a rematch of the King’s Cup final that was won by Shabab on May 15, Ittihad turned the tables on Shabab for a 2-1 victory on Wednesday night at the Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Stadium.
Al-Hilal bowed out of competition as did Al-Ittifaq, respectively beaten by Qatar’s Umm Salal 4-3 on Tuesday and PFC Pakhtakor Tashkent of Uzbekistan 2-1 at Prince Muhammad ibn Fahd stadium in Dammam on Wednesday.
Hilal was widely tipped to beat the league newcomer Qatari side. Instead, Hilal went down in humiliating defeat, Tariq Al-Tayeb and Muhammad Shalhoub each flubbing penalty kicks during the shootout which Umm Salal won 4-3, after a long scoreless 120 minutes of regulation period and extra time.
Football pundits were quick to put the blame for Hilal’s exit on interim coach Abdul Lateef Al-Husseini who exposed his lack of experience when he took out ace striker Yaser Al-Qahtani for Ahmad Al-Suwaileh. It looked as if both coaches wanted the game to go to penalty kicks. Hilal could have played with two strikers since the Qatari team was playing defensively and with only one striker.
The other shocker to come the Saudi fans’ way was when Ittifaq lost a home game against an Uzbek side. The Ittifaq coach was left to rue the blown chances of his players.
In a press conference after the match, he said, “We dominated the match for 80 minutes until they struck with the equalizer in the last 10 minutes of the match. The goal stunned Ittifaq players and Pakhtakor took advantage of the situation and Ittifaq’s defensive lapses to score the winning goal in the last minutes. I am sure had we scored another goal earlier, we could have put an end to the match.”
Ittihad played with the 4-4-2 formation and was better organized than Shabab this time. Ittihad coach came up trumps in his decision to field
Hisham Bushawran who fired the winning goal in injury time.
