ten Cate takes belief from Jazira’s incredible run in President's Cup

Matt Jones - Editor 10:42 29/05/2016
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  • Henk ten Cate.

    The capital giants reached Sunday’s season-ending showpiece courtesy of Ali Mabkhout’s hat-trick in the 3-2 semi-final win against Al Ahli, who had been crowned Arabian Gulf League 22 days earlier.

    Even more impressive was their 6-5 penalty shootout victory against Sharjah in the quarterfinals – twice fighting back from two goals behind. Jazira were 2-0 down with 11 minutes of normal time left but Thiago Neves’ double forced extra-time.

    They then fell 4-2 behind before Sultan Bargash and a Mauricio Ramos own goal saw a crazy game decided by spot kicks. “For us playing in the final is like a present,” said coach Ten Cate. “Nobody expected us, even me, to be in the final. In January we were dead and buried. Now we can make something of the season.”

    Because of how the season has gone for his side, the Dutchman believes the pressure on Al Ain to win will be enormous, which he feels his players can exploit. “For Al Ain, it’s a do or die situation,” he said. “They must win, there’s a lot of pressure on them. Hopefully we will take advantage of this.

    “The guys believe in themselves. After beating Sharjah, it gives us enormous spirit, which we then showed against Al Ahli and this gives an extra boost. We’re very relaxed because there’s no pressure on us and at the end of the season you see we’re playing very well, so we have a lot of confidence.

    “We should be careful the confidence does not turn into arrogance. We are aware of who we are playing, a fantastic team with great players. I’m very proud of my team. If you look at where we came from and where we are I can only be happy. I want my players to enjoy the final. They deserve to be there and I want them to have fun.”

    Ten Cate was in jovial mood at yesterday’s press conference in the bowels of Zayed Sports City, joking with media that the Al Ain bottled water provided for him was a declaration of war.

    He later poured his glass half full with water to indicate his mood ahead of the game. “The glass you can say is half empty or half full. Our glass is always half full,” he said. “We look at the positive things this season brought us and one of the main positives is we used a lot of young players and some of them played an important role.

    “These young players helped to bring us to the final, which is very good. Out of bad things good things come.”

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