A terrible mistake from Ajman goalkeeper Ali Mesmari gifted Al Ahli a 2-1 victory over their visitors at the Rashid Stadium last night as the Red Knights welcomed back Luis Jimenez following a four-week absence.
A first half stunner from Simon Feindouno was cancelled two minutes later by a questionable Grafite header before Abdulaziz Haikal’s late strike, six minutes from full-time, gave the home side the three points.
“Today we can say we didn’t play our best game,” said Ahli assistant coach Catalin Raducan. “It’s not easy to get the players to concentrate to give everything.
“But the most important thing is that we fought until the end and we won.”
Ahli started off stronger but it was Ajman who came dangerously close to scoring in the 28th minute when Ahmed Al Yassi delivered a pinpoint cross to a sprinting Boris Kabi, who did well to connect but inexplicably headed wide while one-on-one with Saif Yousif.
The deadlock was broken in the 38th minute when Feindouno dazzled with a volley from the edge of the box to stun Saif Yousif and give Ajman the lead.
Grafite equalised two minutes later however with a controversial header, that bounced off the ground, the bar, then the ground again before appearing to have crossed the goalline moments prior to Mesmari punching it out. Replays revealed that he could have also been offside.
The second half saw Jimenez come on for Ahli for the first time since getting injured in an AFC Champions League match against Sepahan four weeks ago, as the Chilean replaced Ismail Al Hammadi in the 77th minute.
The match was on its way to a draw before a Haikal shot from the right bounced a couple of times, tricking Mesmari, who ended up pushing the ball into his own net.
The victory means Ahli have now passed the 60-point mark in the standings, and are one point away from Al Ain’s record of 62 points they accumulated last season.
“We are happy that Luis (Jimenez) is back,” said Raducan. “He’s an important player for us. When he came on the field, he showed his quality, he changed our game. We have nine days until Dhafra game to get him 100 per cent fit.”
Al Dhafra have accepted Ahli’s request to move next week’s match – the final fixture of the season – from the Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan Stadium to the Red Knights’ home ground, to allow the UAE champions to celebrate winning the league title in front of a home crowd.
