Al Nasr establish credentials as challengers at Al Jazira’s expense

The Brazilian Nilmar put the finishing touches of a fine move for his first goal in the Arabian Gulf League to help Al Nasr kill off Al Jazira’s spirited fightback.

Ali Al Ameri, left, and Al Nasr held off Jefferson Farfan and Al Jazira for a 3-2 win at Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium. Al Ittihad

Story of the match

The Brazilian Nilmar put the finishing touches of a fine move for his first goal in the Arabian Gulf League to kill off Al Jazira’s spirited fightback.

Although there was nothing fancy about the strike, a simple tap-in from inside the area, it proved an invaluable winner for Al Nasr to edge out Al Jazira 3-2 and move the Dubai club up to second in the table, a point behind the champions Al Ain, who were held 1-1 at Baniyas.

Luis Jimenez and Jamal Maroof were both on target in the space of two minutes for Nasr, with the visitors’ 2-0 lead owing much to some woeful defending from Musallem Fayez.

His teammate Saif Khalfan tried to knock the ball towards his own goalkeeper Ali Kasheif, who made a smart reaction save, but Maroof was on it in a flash to slot home the loose ball.

But Jazira profited from slack defending themselves to pull level before the break.

Mabkhout intercepted a careless back pass from the Nasr leftback Hassan Abbas back to his goalkeeper Ahmed Shambih on 26 minutes and the UAE international kept a cool head to score and reduce the lead to 2-1.

With the home side buoyed, Yaqoub Al Hosani then stole the ball from under the feet of Khaled Jalal to send Mabkhout through on goal and the Emirati made no mistake to score the equaliser.

Nasr’s winner came courtesy of former Jazira winger Jonathan Pitropia, who supplied the cross for Nilmar to finish and secure all three points for the visitors.

The result only added to Jazira’s woes with the news that last season’s top scorer in the AGL, Mirko Vucinic, has been ruled out for the season with a cruciate ligament injury.

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Man of the match

Luis Jimenez

Opened the scoring and was instrumental in his team regaining the lead after Jazira had made the score 22.

Dictated the pace and tempo of the game throughout.

What managers said

Ivan Jovanovic, the Nasr coach, said: “It was a very important win at a critical stage of the league.

“We scored two quick goals but unfortunately we made two blunders to allow Jazira to score twice.

“However, it was good the score stood at 2-2 at half time so we could regroup and return for the second half to play a better organised game.

“We scored off a collective effort during this period and having regained the lead we preserved the lead rather than going after another goal.”

Abel Braga, the Jazira coach, said: “We did well to recover after conceding two goals but again we conceded a goal because of a defensive mistake.

“We can only work and try to improve game after games.”

The National’s verdict

Nasr have emerged from the pack as a potential challenger to Al Ain and Al Ahli for the AGL title.

Apart from the two goals they conceded from silly defensive mistakes they looked solid.

Along with Ahli, they remain the only other club undefeated in the league so far.

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