The hosts were left frustrated at the break after their 14 first-half shots failed to produce a single goal, but they ultimately reigned supreme at Hazza bin Zayed Stadium thanks to a second-half change in tactics.
Same Ways Same Results
While Malkiya did not play an overtly defensive brand of football, they did defend deep, and Zoran Mamic’s plan to break his opponent’s defences was to have his Al Ain players attempting long-range efforts.
The hosts attacks relied on a quartet of Marcus Berg, Hussein El Shahat, Caio and Omar Abdulrahman. Between them, Al Ain attackers fired 14 shots, but their accuracy was lacking, as they forced a single save from goalkeeper Abdulkarim Fardan all half.
Malkiya defenders did their job to perfection in the opening half, with five shots blocked. Nigerian defender Gege Soriola summed up his side’s resilience with a goal-line clearance to keep the score level at the break.
Going Wide Delivers
Faced with the challenge of unlocking a stubborn Malkiya defence, Al Ain’s Croatian coach employed a tactical tweak, which proved crucial for the final result.
The visitors from Bahrain successfully dealt with everything Al Ain threw at them centrally, so the home side’s answer was to stretch play. El Shahhat was moved into a wider right-wing role, and he combined with right back Bandar Al Ahbabi to deliver eight crosses in the second half, compared to a total of three between them in the opening period.
Mamic’s tactical shift delivered great success with two-second half goals from Berg and Caio, both created by crosses from the right flank from non other than El Shahat and Al Ahbabi respectively.
Decent Debut for Malkiya
Despite the 0-2 defeat, Malkiya go into their 2018 AFC Cup group with a lot of positive takeaways from their performance against Al Ain. They threatened on multiple occasions and were denied a superb chance to take the lead by goalkeeper Khaled Eisa.
Isa Al Bari’s attacking contribution will be crucial to the Bahraini champions AFC Cup chances. The striker repeatedly found space behind Al Ain defence, coming agonisingly close with a header that bounced off the surface and above the crossbar.
Malkiya expectedly conceded as high as 70 percent of possession to Al Ain, but alarmingly, they aimed right with just one shot of the eight they were presented with. A low shooting accuracy of 12.5 percent let Ahmed Al Dakheel’s men down in an otherwise commendable performance.
