Al Wahda midfielder Mohamed Al Shehhi has urged his team-mates to make sure of a place in next year’s AFC Champions League by winning all of their four remaining Arabian Gulf League fixtures.
The Abu Dhabi club briefly climbed into the AGL top four with a hard-fought win at Al Shabab on Saturday night that arrived courtesy of a brace from Sebastian Tagliabue.
Sharjah’s goalless draw with Emirates yesterday means Wahda are once again fifth but the two sides are now separated only by their head-to-head record.
The King hold the upper hand there, having taken four points off Wahda this season, but Al Shehhi – who won the penalty that gave Tagliabue his first goal against Shabab – insists his side could yet finish as high as second.
“We talked about this before we started the second round [of league fixtures],” Al Shehhi told Sport360°. “We had the target to be in the first four in the table. Now we are very close and we hope to continue in the last four games to take 12 points to be sure of third or even second, because now Shabab are only six points ahead of us.”
Indeed, Wahda should fancy their chances of securing Asian football in 2015 given their last four games are all against teams in the bottom half – Ajman, Al Dhafra, Dubai and Al Shaab.
Talismanic forward Ismail Matar sat out the win at the Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum Stadium, alongside both Damian Diaz and Hussain Fadel and, given the amount of absentees, Matar felt it was a hugely significant victory.
“Thank God [we won] because before the game it was a disaster," said Matar. “A lot of players were out of shape and the win was very important because Shabab are second in the league, and if we want to close the gap we need to beat the teams that are ahead of us.”
Tagliabue’s two goals in Dubai took his season tally to 20 in the AGL, putting him just one behind Asamoah Gyan at the top of the scoring charts.
The 29-year-old has scored nine goals in his last six league appearances and the former Al Shabab Riyadh hitman – and Saudi Arabian football’s top scorer last season – drew praise from his team-mates for his recent impact.
“Of course for us he’s very good and now he’s also near to Gyan,” Matar said. “I think when the team needed him he showed up and that was very important for us.”
Al Shehhi added: “Before the start of the season he had an operation, and when we started the season he was not very well. But he has improved a lot and also the players behind him give him many chances.
“He only had two or three chances [on Saturday] and he scored two goals, that’s very good for us.”
