Cosmin Olaroiu angered after Al Wahda turn down request to reschedule Al Ahli game

Cosmin Olaroiu, coach of Al Ahli. Courtesy Asian Football Confederation

Al Ahli manager Cosmin Olariou is angry that Al Wahda have refused to postpone Sunday’s Arabian Gulf League fixture in Abu Dhabi.

Ahli had asked the Abu Dhabi side to move the fixture 24 hours back to Monday, following their exploits in the Asian Champions League semi-final last Tuesday, but Wahda turned the request down.

Ahli won a thrilling game against Saudi Arabia's Al Hilal 3-2 to progress to the ACL final against Guangzhou Evergrande next month, but Olariou is concerned about the toll the match will have taken on his players.

“I’m more and more disappointed about what we see and how they treat us,” Olariou said. “Sometimes everyone says they’re with you, everyone supports you, but it’s only just in the media, because when you need help nobody helps you.

“Everyone forget these players have played and have done a very good job for this country, and also before when I was in Al Ain I remember Sheikh Hazza said ‘give all support for a team when it’s in an international competition’. Unfortunately when we talk about Al Ahli it’s not the same.

“But that’s it. We can play any time. We can play also on November 6 if necessary, and all the time we try to do our job as much as we can. What else can I say?

Olariou is still confident his side can earn a victory that would make it four wins out of four for his side in the AGL.

“The most important is to recover physically. They (the players) made a great effort against Hilal, they ran much more than in all the games in the local competitions and the most important for me in this moment is that they recover physically.

“Now, we’ll prepare today and tomorrow for the game. We have two days like usual and we try our best.”

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