Sharjah down and out

Sharjah's Champions League campaign is over after their fourth and largest defeat in their first season in the competition. Toni Oliveira's men suffered a humiliating 5-0 mauling away the Saudi club Al Shabab in their Group C encounter on Tuesday night. Despite the comprehensive scoreline, Oliveira astonishingly complained that the scoreline did not reflect his team's performance, saying: "We have met a strong team and they have good players but I'm really satisfied with the performance of my players. We conceded easy goals from bad mistakes which we could have avoided."

The Portuguese coach admitted his small squad didn't harbour much hope as they travelled to Riyadh following a 3-1 home defeat to the same opponents a fortnight ago. "We knew before the game that it would be very hard for us especially with the big difference between both teams. We have to play with the same players in two competitions, and under the circumstances, we have done pretty well." Nassir al Shamrani fired a hat trick for Shabab with Abdulaziz Saran scoring the remaining two, and their coach Enzo Trossero was naturally delighted.

He said: "The game was hard but we had a good performance in the first half. I'm happy because the score was big and there were no problems or injuries for our side. Sharjah put in a good performance and they have good players but things just didn't go their way." Shabab took their tally to 10 points to top the group, three ahead of the Iranian club Piroozi, who suffered a shock 5-1 defeat away to Al Gharafa of Qatar, who moved to within one point of the Iranians.

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