Al Ain 2
Lee 10’, Kembo-Ekoko 78’
Al Hilal 1
Nasir 66’
Red Card
Al Ain Gyan 70'
Result Al Hilal won 4-2 on aggregate
AL AIN // Just as their manager commanded, Al Ain went down fighting in the Asian Champions League on Tuesday night.
Somewhere along the line between Croat to English to Arabic, though, the exact interpretation was lost.
Late on the night before the game, Zlatko Dalic, the Al Ain manager, was clearly struggling for sleep, given that he tweeted a picture for the benefit of the home supporters.
It called on them, and by extension his players, to “fight”, with the message spelled out in purple-and white-colours of the seats on the main stand at the Hazza bin Zayed Stadium.
In the embers of this storied semi-final tie, though, the players took it all too literally.
Read more: Plenty of reason to smile for Al Ain fans after Asian Champions League setback
Asamoah Gyan, the Ghanaian striker, was sent off for a scything, two-footed tackle on Salem Al Dawsari.
Not that he was inclined to go. And not many of those around him fancied going quietly, either. In the melee which ensued, hands were raised high, tempers even higher, head butts aimed but missed, and water bottles liberally tossed at foes.
Two red cards across the two-legs had made a mission improbable for Al Ain entirely impossible. That they won on the night thanks to goals from Lee Myung-joo and Jires Kembo-Ekoko was really a footnote. The Saudi visitors, formerly managed by Dalic, were deserved victors.
Dalic clearly retains a great fondness for his former employers. His last tweet, previous to the one imploring his new charges to battle, was one wishing Saudis a happy National Day last week.
Whether the feeling is still reciprocated, however, is debatable. When Dalic took to the field immediately before kick-off, in an attempt to whip up home support, he was roundly booed by the travelling supporters.
The Hilal faithful may have been fewer in number than they were at the home leg in Riyadh two weeks ago, but they were just as rowdy here.
As Ahmed Hanbashi, one of those clad in away blue, pointed out, they had journeyed a long way to follow their team. So they were going to make themselves heard.
“I travelled 1,200 kilometres to get here to see Al Hilal play – and win, also,” said Hanbashi, who is a schoolteacher.
He said he left his home at 5.30 on Monday morning and arrived in Al Ain at 7.30pm.
“I did it because Al Hilal means so much to me. We have been waiting for this time for more than 10 years. It has been our dream. We are one step from that now, and it is for that dream that we came here.”
Another Hilal supporter had made a 12-hour drive to get to the game. “We are going to take out Al Ain’s eyes and go to the final,” said the supporter, who asked to remain anonymous as he did not want his father to know he had travelled to the match.
Starting three goals in arrears, Al Ain’s supporters knew they needed something exceptional. “We just need Gyan, Amouri [Omar Abdulrahman] and Jires to play very well,” said Mohammed Ali, a home fan.
Many wore purple Abdulrahman wigs in the hope their hero might conjure something. He hinted at it early in the piece, when his free-kick found Lee at the far post, for the opening goal.
Al Ain looked the better side for much of the play thereafter. But their waning hopes of a place in the final were extinguished when Nassir Al Shamrani bundled home an away goal, and his side’s fourth in the tie, in the 66th minute.
Once Gyan had lost his head, and Dalic removed the combative Miroslav Stoch to save him from doing the same, Al Ain were finished.
As the final whistle blew, Al Hilal’s supporters unfurled a massive banner asking simply: “Who’s next?” The home fans might have been wondering: “What’s next?”
pradley@thenational.ae
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