Rashid Ali was the saviour for Al Wasl on Sunday night as the young goalkeeper blocked a penalty to give the hosts a 2-1 win over Al Shaab. Ali, who spends most of his time on the bench watching the UAE keeper Majed Nasser between the posts for Wasl, dived low to his left in the 69th minute to deny Abdullah Abdulqader from equalising for a second time for Shaab. Earlier in the 56th minute, Abdulqader had cancelled out Alexander Oliveira's 24th minute strike for Wasl.
The parity, however, did not last long as Shaab conceded a penalty four minutes later and Iman Mobali put Wasl back in front before Ali's heroics. In the other game of the evening, Al Ain condemned Ajman to their third crushing defeat on the trot, after the 5-3 and 4-0 losses against Al Ahli. Rami Yaslam opened the scoring for the visitors and Salem Abdullah added a second before half-time. Andre Diaz then made it 3-0 in the 54th minute.
Ajman were reduced to 10 men in the 43rd minute after Saeed Obaid was given a straight red card for a nasty tackle. arizvi@thenational.ae
