JEDDAH, 19 June 2004 — Al-Shabab blotted Al-Ittihad pad to lift the King Fahd Cup with a stunning 1-0 victory in the premier soccer tournament last night at the Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Stadium here. This loss was the first for Ittihad in a tournament held in Saudi Arabia after keeping a clean slate for 22 games.
Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, attended the game and presented the trophy to the winning team along with goal medals. The silver medals were presented to Ittihad.
Ittihad dominated for most of the first half concentrating their attacks mostly on the right flank with Islam Al-Shater taking the lead. Shabab failed to match the drive of the Ittihad players and laid heavy accent on defense throughout the match, while relying on counter attacks. Though Ittihad made the moves, they failed to get the goals. The first half ended 0-0.
In the second half, Ittihad continued to hold sway for the majority of the period but their attacks were better organized when Hamza Idrees donned the role of a playmaker.
In the 48th minute, Al-Shater gave a nice cross to Jcheco, who shot the ball neatly found the ball hit out of harm’s way by Shabab defenders. In the 58th minute, Al-Waked almost scored when he took a sweetly-time shot from outside box but this time Shabab goalkeeper Rashed Al-Magrin was at hand to save the day.
The most dangerous move came in the 73rd minute when Muhammad Nur gave a nice backward pass to Al-Hassan Al-Yami inside the penalty box. Al-Yami in turn relayed the ball to Hamza, who was thwarted by the Shabab defense by crowding off tactics.
Shabab scored the winner in the 81st minute through Richard Manga. The pass was provided by the star of Shabab, Brazilian Landomar, who sent in a defense-splitting pass in front of the goal.
Hamad Al-Muntashiri failed to clear the ball on time, and Manga took advantage and scored an easy goal for Shabab. After the goal, Shabab fell back on defense and at times packed the defense line with nine players with only Ahmad Otaif in the attacking position.
All efforts to score the equalizer failed and when Muhammad Nur flubbed a chance in the 90th minute when he failed to drive home a ball he received outside the penalty box the writing was on the wall and Ittihad saw a glorious season end in such dismay.
