Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Amman: Three goals in the first half took former champions Al Faisaly a step closer to a place in the knockout phase of the 2016 AFC Cup as they secured a 3-1 win over Lebanon’s Tripoli in their Group B meeting on Tuesday evening.
Baha Abdelrahman, Nahar Mohammad and Yaser Al Rawashdeh were all on target in the opening 45 minutes as Al Faisaly moved on to eight points from their opening four games in the current campaign.
Abou Bakr Al Mel claimed a consolation for Tripoli 11 minutes from time and the Lebanese club is now four points behind Al Faisaly with just two rounds of matches remaining in the group stage.
“We controlled the first half and we scored three goals while we could have added more,” said Al Faisaly coach Mohammad Al Odali. “In the second period our players didn’t have a good performance because of the big result and that gave the advantage to our opponents.
“Our main target was to get the three points but the most important thing now is to focus on the last two matches. This result doesn’t mean that we did not have some defensive mistakes and we will try our best to fix those mistakes.”
Al Faisaly were in dominant mood from the first whistle, but it took until the 31st minute before Abdelrahman found the back of the net as he capitalised on a mistake by goalkeeper Abdo Tafeh to score into the empty goal.
Just two minutes later, Al Faisaly had doubled their advantage thanks to well struck effort from Mohammad and, with just two minutes remaining in the half, the game was all but over as a contest when Al Rawashdeh headed home Mohamad Al Refai’s cross from the right.
Tripoli missed the chance to reduce the deficit in the 61st minute when Mohamad Ghaddar saw his penalty saved by Mohamd Shatnawi but, with 79 minutes on the clock, Al Mel claimed a consolation when he curled the ball beyond Shatnawi and into the back of the net.
“In the first period Al Faisaly managed to score three quick goals as they took advantage from our defensive mistakes,” said Tripoli coach Nizar Mahrous. “In the second half we controlled the match and we could have made a good comeback but we were not lucky and we missed a penalty.
“I’m satisfied with the performance but I’m not happy with the result. The group is hard and we have three opponents who have better experience than our team and hopefully we can learn and get more experience from the competition.”
Photo: Lagardère Sports