Al Jazira fall to a 3-0 defeat against Lekhwiya

Denzil Pinto 17:02 21/02/2017
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  • Al Jazira lost 3-0 in Doha

    It was a miserable night for Al Jazira as the Arabian Gulf League (AGL) leaders were comprehensively beaten 3-0 by Lekhwiya in their AFC Champions League opener.

    Having won their last seven league matches, the Pride of Abu Dhabi would have fancied their chances of taking all three points in Doha especially against a side who had only tasted success once at home in their last six matches.

    Instead, Lekhwiya were far superior with Youssef El-Arabi’s brace and a solo strike from Youssef Msakni sealing the deserved victory at the Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium.

    For Jazira, they were far from their best and yesterday’s result gave an indication of how influential Leonardo will be missed after the AFC Champions League winner was withdrawn from the squad for the group stages.

    It just took 11 minutes for Henk Ten Cate’s men to fall behind when Msakni took advantage of poor defending to cross home for El-Arabi.

    Minutes later, Msakni then tried his luck from long range but his effort was blocked by Ali Khaseif.

    Trailing 1-0, Jazira were still in the game but failed to find that cutting edge in front of goal with chances hard to come by for AGL top-scorer Ali Mabkhout.

    After the restart, there was encouraging signs of improvement from Jazira with Lekhwiya goalkeeper Amine Lecomte producing an outstanding point blank save to deny Mabkhout on 70 minutes.

    Khaseif made two saves in quick succession to stop Ismail Mohammed and Msakni. But it was the home fans who were celebrating 10 minutes from time when Msakni, who was a constant threat on the wing, doubled the lead.

    The Moroccan beat Salim Rashid easily before unleashing the ball past Khaseif.

    Jazira’s evening went bad to worse when El-Arabi got his second  after the former Granada forward converted Hassan Afif’s cross in the closing stages.

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