Karimi's double-delight dash Al-Jazira hopes

Action from the league match between Al Jazira and Al Ahli at Al Jazira club yesterday in Abu Dhabi. ©Gulf News

GulfNews - All the roads of the UAE's first division football league lead to Al Ain now. The former leaders Al Jazira have their hopes severely dented as they lost, as expected, at home to Al Ahli 1-2. Al Jazira thus surrendered the lead they were maintaining over the last five weeks.

It was expected that Al Jazira will go down the hill since their young players lack the experience to hold onto the lead as they have never before won a first division title. They started last week to pay the bill of their lead when they failed to beat Al Khaleej, the bottom of the standing, and settled for a point.

Al Jazira, who earned the admiration of the local football fans recently with their team work and mutual understanding, were a shadow of themselves yesterday. They committed several individual mistakes. Al Jazira players were slow in movements and panicked in front of their goal and squandered easy chances.

Al Jazira youngsters have their excuse of inexperience but the Liberian professional duo, George Weah and James Debbah, have no excuse. They played one of their worst ever matches since they joined the team.

Weah, in particular, has been the inspiration of Al Jazira and their leader. But yesterday he did nothing. And it was his second poor match despite the fact that he scored the team's only goal against Al Khaleej last week which earned them one point.

Al Ahli, with nothing to lose, benefited from the rich talents of their Iranian striker Ali Karimi who was a constant headache to the home team's defence and supporters in addition to Mohammed Abdul Karim, the referee and his first assistant Ali Makhloof.

They neglected a clear off side situation when Karimi received a pass six minutes into the game. Karimi advanced to go past Saeed Jumaa before slotting home his team's first goal. Jumaa should shoulder some of the responsibility as he went outside his penalty box to meet Karimi unnecessarily.

Al Jazira tried to change the result but it was evident that they were under tremendous pressure and that led to many mistakes in midfield and defence. The team squandered all chances that came their way.

Al Ahli could have went further ahead only two minutes after the breather. The home team's young defender Khalid Ali failed to clear and Karimi snatched the ball and sent Salim Khamis clear. Khamis shot high outside the goal from inside the six–yard area.

Al Jazira played better in the second half. They pressed hard against the Ahli goal but their shots lacked accuracy and concentration. Also good goalkeeping from Al Ahli goalkeeper Ali Saeed denied them immediate gains.

The ceaseless pressure Al Jazira exerted on Ahli's goal resulted in their only goal. Mohsin Saad passed to Tarig Ogab, both were substitutes, and Ogab sent a fierce shot from outside the box scoring his team's goal, 29 minutes after the interval.

But Ogab turned from hero to villain only three minutes later. A wrong pass from Ogab went to Salim Khamis who sent Karimi ahead and the unmarked Iranian striker went on to score the match–winner for his team, sealing the result.

One minute into the injury time, the last real scoring chance in the match came Al Ahli's way. Salim Khamis was sent clear following a perfect pass from Hassan Ali Shah. Salim's shot was blocked brilliantly by Jumaa saving his team more humiliation.

Al Ahli increased their tally to 26 points from 18 matches while Al Jazira remained with 34 from the same number of encounters.