Al Ahli's Basheer Saeed has warned Al Ain about his team’s “fire” as the Emirati defender insists the Dubai club is still hungry for more success this season.
Looking to complete an unprecedented quadruple with the AGL title, Arabian Gulf Cup and Super Cup all in the bag, Ahli enter today’s President’s Cup final more content than their opponents.
Al Ain are looking to salvage a trophy-less season – but Saeed says the Red Knights are far from done.
“We are still hungry. You never have enough of winning titles. We are like fire, we eat everything in our way,” said the 32-year-old Emirati.
Leading the Ahli defence, Saeed and his team-mates have a tough task of handling the threat of an Al Ain side that includes the likes of top-scorer Asamoah Gyan and UAE hero Omar Abdulrahman.
Saeed has had much success in containing Gyan in their three encounters this season with the Ghanaian managing to score only once – through a penalty – against Ahli.
The UAE veteran says the team have managed to stay focused following last week’s league celebrations and he’s looking to continue his good run against Gyan.
“We sealed the league a while ago, since the game against Al Wasl. The only thing that happened last week was that we received the trophy, he said. “We have been preparing for the President’s Cup final for quite some time now. We want to enter history and win this fourth title of the season.
“We have contained Gyan before,” he added. “But what’s important is the future, the next game. That’s what we have to focus on.”
Assistant coach Catalin Raducan shared Saeed’s views and believes the team’s winning mentality will continue until the very end.
“We finished the league mathematically a month ago and everyone said they were worried we couldn’t concentrate but we won two games and drew with Shabab after that,” said Raducan.
“We showed that we have the mentality to win games and we had that all season. And we’ll keep this mentality until the last minute. Gyan is an important player but this game isn’t about a fight between Basheer and Gyan, or between Omar (Abdulrahman) and Walid Abbas.
“It’s a fight between both teams – one good execution can make a difference.”
Al Ain are in good form under new coach Zlatko Dalic, but Raducan says that counts for little in a cup final.
“We can’t say that one team starts as a favourite. Both teams have very good players. We respect Al Ain but also if we talk about stats then we can see that in the last two years they haven’t beaten Al Ahli. So they also must respect us on the field.”
