Ismail Al Hammadi: determined but diminutive in stature, hardly Spartan.
When Cosmin Olaroiu used his pre-match news conference to evoke another Herculean effort from his Al Ahli players, calling upon his "fighters, his Spartans" to come through against Guangzhou Evergrande in Saturday's Asian Champions League final first leg, it seemed slightly incongruous where Al Hammadi is concerned.
After all, the compact little winger is hardly the most imposing of players, standing at 1.64m, squat and sturdy, but more creative than combative.
Yet against Guangzhou Evergrande, Al Hammadi led the charge, the one bright spark in a match that offered only fleeting moments of genuine quality. Ahli’s twin Brazilian threat was expected to carry the home cause, much as they have done through the competition’s latter stages, but here Everton Ribeiro and Rodrigo Lima were largely ineffectual.
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Starting on the right flank, Ribeiro struggled to get into the match, while Lima’s luck ran out in his 13th appearance for the club. Spending the majority on the periphery, he failed to find the net for the first time in Ahli red. In their general absence, Al Hammadi stepped up.
He excelled throughout, a tireless ball of fury, all fast feet and full-blooded commitment.
When Ahli struggled to gain a foothold in the game in the first half, he offered a constant out, always eager to take on Zhang Linpeng, Guangzhou’s formidable right-back. At 1.82m, the Chinese defender dwarfed his Ahli rival, but Al Hammadi simply puffed out his chest, showed for the ball and accepted the challenge.
At one point, he scooped the ball over Linpeng’s head; another time, he raced free and onto Ribeiro’s defence-splitting pass, faced up his opponent, cut inside and forced a fine save from Zeng Cheng in the Guangzhou goal. It represented Ahli’s clearest opening until then. In truth, they never really had another.
In a match billed as David against Goliath, this was it in microcosm: Ahli’s little guy in direct confrontation with a Guangzhou giant. Yet Al Hammadi never once shirked the battle, never hid in the most significant encounter in his club’s history.
Embodying everything that has brought Ahli to this juncture – the grit, the determination, the never-say-die attitude – that spirit that has lifted them to within 90 minutes of the pre-eminent prize in Asian club football.
In the second half, as Ahli were penned back by Guangzhou, it was Al Hammadi who provided the outlet. Eager and earnest, he skipped away from his markers, juggled the ball through those in yellow shirts, even gave Zheng Zhi, the visitors’ vastly experienced captain, a torrid few minutes around the hour mark.
When Ahli were reduced to 10 men following Abdulaziz Haikal’s needless red card, Al Hammadi spent the last six minutes of normal time and the four minutes added for injuries filling holes, blocking channels and buttressing the route to goal.
He concluded the match hobbling over to the centre circle, where Guangzhou had gathered to exchange post-match handshakes, buckled by cramp but not burdened by failing to do his bit, to play his part.
A gargantuan effort from Ahli’s least gargantuan guy. To borrow from his coach, his was a Spartan performance indeed.
jmcauley@thenational.ae
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