ABU DHABI // Khalid Essa has called on Al Ain's supporters to replicate Al Ittihad's fans – whom he said carried the Saudi Arabia club to victory at Mecca last week – when the Garden City club meet Iran's Tractor Sazi on Tuesday night.
The Al Ain goalkeeper played in the 2-1 defeat to the Saudi giants and he has urged his club’s fans to turn out in force and crank up the noise for the visit of the Iranians in the Asian Champions League Group C encounter at the Hazza bin Zayed Stadium.
“I would like to say to our fans that they don’t need to be invited to attend the match and their presence is so important for us as players and we will do all we can to win,” he said.
That will be a tall order for an Al Ain side still trying to adapt to the coaching methods of Zlatko Dalic, who replaced Quique Sanchez Flores last week after the Spaniard was dismissed.
Tractor Sazi are top of Group C on four points after victory over Ittihad and an away draw against Lekhwiya of Qatar. Al Ain began with a home win over Lekhwiya under Sanchez Flores while Dalic’s first assignment ended with that defeat in Mecca last week.
“There isn’t much difference between the coaching techniques between Quique and Zlatko,” said Essa when asked if the coaching changes had any effect on the outcome of their last game. “Each had their own ways, but we, as players, must help the coach to achieve the objectives of the club.
“We, as players, want to make our fans happy and we feel this is a good opportunity to bounce back from the defeat in Saudi Arabia.
“Of course we are up against a team that is still to be beaten in this group, but we are confident.”
Dalic insisted his players will have to cut out errors if they are to secure a positive result at home.
“The most important thing that we should do against Tractor is to fix the mistakes that we made against Ittihad and improve the situation of the team,” he said.
“The players should be ready and they must concentrate in the match to get a positive result. We lost concentration against Ittihad and we were punished. Therefore, we should be wary of the threat of our opponents who have good players and can cause a lot of problems for us.”
Toni Oliveira, the Tractor Sazi coach, wants the three points. “Our objective is to reach 10 points as quickly as possible and that would give us the opportunity to go beyond the group stage,” the Portuguese coach said. “This is a pressure game for us against Al Ain. They have some outstanding players, particularly Omar Abdulrahman. They also won against Lekhwiya at this stadium. So we know whom we are up against.”
Veteran midfielder Ali Karimi returns from a one-match ban for Tractor Sazi but they will be without defender Mohammed Nasrati, who got a red card in the last game.
Abdulrahman came off the bench in the 78th minute against Ittihad but Dalic said he was unlikely to start against Tractor as he looks to regain fitness after an injury layoff.
apassela@thenational.ae
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