For many, Saturday night's Arabian Gulf Cup final should be a mere formality. The juggernaut that is Al Ahli under Cosmin Olaroiu will navigate Al Jazira with relative ease, secure the second leg of a potential treble and set up a blockbuster President’s Cup final with Al Ain on May 18.
It cannot be denied that next month’s showpiece would be given more than a little gravitas if the one team left in the way of the Red Knights and a domestic clean sweep was the very club from which they poached their trophy-hogging coach.
The irony cannot have been lost on Olaroiu either that with victory at the Hazza bin Zayed Stadium he would become the first man to pick up a piece of silverware in his former employers’ shiny new home.
Yet football is not WWE and no matter how much narrative one outcome might contain it doesn’t make it any more likely.
Standing in their way are a Jazira side buoyed by qualification to the second round of the AFC Champions League — something Ahli are yet to secure — and a coach determined to prove just how far the club has come under his tutelage.
Zenga gives the impression of a man who was just pleased to have made it to a final. He is “happy” to be in the Garden City and even took a selfie with Subait Khater to mark the occasion.
One thing is for sure though is that will not have been the message portrayed to his players.
Khater is unlikely to feature from the start for one, and it is more likely that the Italian is merely trying to play up his side’s role as underdogs against Olaroiu’s winning machine.
After all it was Ahli who came out on top — and convincingly — when the two sides met in Abu Dhabi just 13 days ago. If Zenga sets his side out to play without the ball again tonight, they are doomed.
However, winning this game means more to the Italian than he is letting on.
The 53-year-old often cites the work done before Olaroiu turned up at the Rashid Stadium when explaining how he envisages Jazira evolving. Under Quique Sanchez Flores, Ahli won this competition, then the President’s Cup.
Now under Olaroiu they have won the Arabian Gulf League, and Zenga wants to instil the same winning belief in his players. To do that, they need to win, ruin the Red Knights’ dream and give their coach something to be really happy about.
