Goals like rain… Al Ain loses to Al Hilal 4-5

Al Ain, the “defending champion,” suffered its second consecutive loss in the AFC Champions League for Elite Clubs, after falling at its home stadium and in front of its fans to Saudi Al Hilal 4-5, today, Monday, at Hazza Bin Zayed Stadium, in an exciting match that witnessed abundant goals and the participation of Brazilian star Neymar. Returning from injury” in the final minutes with the Saudi team.
Al Ain’s situation became more difficult with this loss, with its score frozen at one point and falling to the penultimate place among 12 teams, while Al Hilal remained in the lead with a full score of nine points.
The first half was volatile in its details from Al Ain’s side, and the excitement came with the seventh minute, when Sufyan Rahimi succeeded in hitting Al Hilal’s defense with a long ball, after which he passed the goalkeeper and scored from a difficult position, but the Malaysian arena referee Mohamed Nazmi canceled the goal due to offside.
The offensive attempts continued from both sides, so that Alexander Mitrovic was able to exploit an empty space on the right side of Al Ain, and reverse a pass to Renan Lodi, who went off and shot a sudden ball to the right of Khaled Issa, scoring the visitors’ first goal (26).
Al Ain’s personality was present after the goal, and it put pressure on Al Hilal all the time until Sufyan Rahimi was able to translate the home team’s advantage and divert Eric’s cross into the net (39).
But Al Ain paid the price for its fatal defensive mistakes, as it received the second goal through Milinkovic-Savic after a pass from his colleague Joao Cancelo, and he rose to it with his head without the slightest harassment from the two central defenders (45+2).
Khaled Issa again committed another mistake by leaving his goal at a bad time, which made Salem Al-Dosari’s task easier, and he easily scored the third goal “45 + 5”.
Al Ain entered the second period with a clear attacking desire to compensate, and Sufyan Rahimi missed the opportunity to score after he was in a good position to shoot at the goal, but he tried to pass to Kaku, but the Saudi defense blocked it.
Al Ain’s Argentine coach, Hernan Crespo, intervened and brought in the duo, Laba Cudjou and Mateo Sanabria, to increase the attacking effectiveness, and indeed Sanabria succeeded in scoring the second goal, created by Laba Cudjou (63).
Al-Zaeem’s joy did not last more than two minutes, so Salem Al-Dosari took advantage of another mistake by Al-Ain’s defense and widened the gap again (65).
Al Ain returned to the atmosphere of the match again thanks to Sufyan Rahimi, who performed a distinguished individual action as he shot a ball from inside the box to deceive the goalkeeper “67”.
Salem Al-Dosari intervened again and made his mark for the third time against Al-Ain with a quick counter-attack that he ended with a wonderful shot from outside the area, causing his ball to land in the net to the left of Khaled Issa (75).
Luck smiled at the Al Ain team in the last 10 minutes by expelling Al Hilal defender Ali Al Bulayhi, who then received a penalty kick from which Sufyan Rahimi scored the fourth goal (90+6), but it was not enough to get out, even with a draw point.