Interesting night of Pro League games. The first was Sharjah and Dubai, and the old-school elite level side (that would be Sharjah) was sputtering towards a scoreless draw with the low-budget guys from the recently promoted side (that would be Dubai), and Sharjah got a goal from Marcelinho in the 90th minute to win 1-0. Kept Dubai from getting its first point of the season, in its fourth match. Tough break.
The other was even more interesting, though it ended in a draw. It just seemed like a victory for Al Jazira fans, whose team trailed 1-0 after five minutes, 2-0 after an hour and 2-1 five minutes into added time at the end of the match.
Give Jazira credit. The side never gave up. It kept coming back again and again, beating on the Ahli defence, which was playing a man short after Artistide Bance was red-carded in the 36th minute for a loud and long stream of invective aimed at a Jazira player.
Just when the match had to be over ... Jazira was awarded a free kick just outside the box with about 5:30 showing on the digital readout on our TV set in the office.
And here is what happened.
Subait Khater, the Jazira midfielder known for dead-ball kicks --
thouogh Matias Delgado, the Argentine mid, has been taking a lot of them
lately stood over the ball, and Ahli goalkeeper Obaid al Taweela
organized his defence, with Fabio Cannavaro helping ...
And
Khater strode forward and drilled a shot that found a one-yard gap
between Cannavaro and the Ahli wall ... and came in so long and hard and
so near the left post that al Taweela couldn't reach it, and a whole
bunch of things happened.
Jazira celebrated like it was Y2K. A
reprieve from defeat so late it almost didn't seem possible. A very nice
goal. A spot alone atop the Pro League standings -- at least for about
22 hours, anyway. Ahli still stuck in the middle of the standings with
five points from four matches -- a win, two draws, a defeat. An
expensive team not getting much done ... but had Ahli survived that last
crack at the goal, it would have vaulted up to seven points -- along
with Jazira and Al Ain (who play Saturday night).
All that
changed. Oh, and Jazira's impressive streak of losing only once since
the 2009-10 season began ... still going. One defeat in 26 matches now.
Impressive.
A few other observations:
--Fabio Cannavaro is
having a nightmarish first month in the UAE. He had a caution in each
of his first three games, was culpable for at least two goals, served a
suspension in the President's Cup game, seemed to be out of position on
the Khater goal at the end tonight, and was caught on video handling a
ball so egregiously that even Patrick Vieira was embarrassed for him. At
the attacking end, the Italian seemed to catch a ball, handle it and
practically drop it back down on his foot. Had any official seen it, it
could have been a red.
--I would love to know how/why Aristide
Bance lost his mind in the 36th minute and just heaped verbal abuse on a
Jazira player. I don't know what he said, or what language it was, but
it looked loud, very angry and it went on for a long time. The forward
from Burkino Faso missed the final hour of the match, which probably
cost his team a victory, and he is suspended from the next -- against Al
Ain. He was out of control.
--Jazira has never won a Pro League
title, and even though it leads the table at the moment, it will not win
one this year, either, unless 1) Ibrahim Diaky, their key midfielder,
returns to form. He has been nearly invisible for most of the season; 2)
coach Abel Braga gets the Brazilian attacker Bare off the field. He is
slow, clumsy and hasn't scored in four Pro League matches. Play Tony up
top, and Matias Delgado as a sort of withdrawn forward. Bare is a zero.
That's
it for now. Two more interesting games Saturday night -- Wasl at Dhafra
(anything at Madinat Zayed is fun) and Al Ain at Wahda in another Abu
Dhabi derby -- with leadership of the league at stake.