Al-Wasl suffered “shaky confidence” in front of Muharraq

Al Wasl Club Football Company announced yesterday that it had reached an agreement to terminate the contract by mutual consent with Portuguese coach Luis Castro.

This came after Al Wasl’s 2-2 draw with Bahrain’s Muharraq in the AFC Champions League 2.

Portuguese Luis Castro confirmed that the team started its match against its guest, Al-Muharraq, with shaky confidence, which was reflected in the result of a draw (2-2), yesterday, at Zabeel Stadium, for the fourth round in the first group competitions in the “AFC Champions League 2”.

He said in the press conference held after the end of the match: “We knew that it would be a difficult match, because the other team wanted the three points, but we entered the match with somewhat shaky confidence, and during the second half we suffered from a lack of confidence, so the match ended in a draw.”

Al-Wasl tied with Al-Muharraq 2-2 in the final minutes, with a goal scored by Brazilian Adrelson da Silva, raising Al-Wasl’s score to 10 points at the top of the group, ensuring official qualification to the second round, while Al-Muharraq’s score reached seven points in second place.

Al-Muharraq surprised the Al-Wasl team with an early goal in the second minute, after Elliott passed the ball behind the “Emperor” defenders, so Juninho was alone with goalkeeper Muhammad Ali and shot the ball into the goal. Despite Al-Wasl’s control of the midfield, it did not pose a threat to goalkeeper Ibrahim Lotfallah, before Matthews Saldana got a penalty kick, and Nicolas Jimenez shot the equalizer in the third minute of stoppage time.

In the same way, Al-Muharraq scored the second goal at the beginning of the second half through an individual effort, by Elliot Simoes, who passed Sofiane Bouftini, dodged the goalkeeper and shot the ball into the goal (49), while Adrillson scored the second goal for Al-Wasl, after following a cross ball played by Ali Saleh (84), so that the match ended in a draw.

Luis Castro explained: “The Muharraq match was an extension of the condition our players are suffering from in recent matches, despite working hard last week in preparation for this match, but football is like the rest of the work in life. If you do not work hard enough, the result does not come as expected.”

He added: “In our recent matches, luck was against us many times, even though we played well and had the most possession, but we lacked luck in ending the attacks, and therefore the results were the opposite of what we desired.”

Regarding Al-Wasl’s net conceding five goals in its last three matches, starting with the farewell cup against Dibba, through the draw in the ADNOC League against Khor Fakkan 1-1, and then the draw against Al-Muharraq, Lewis said: “I agree that we suffered from many difficult defensive moments in our past matches, but the deficiencies must be corrected, confidence restored to the players, and focus on how to capitalize on the many opportunities that were presented to score, and we did not succeed in them.”

In turn, Al-Wasl player, Brazilian Adrelson Da Silva, who won the best player award in the match and scored the equalizer in the last minutes for his team, said: “We started the match with shaky confidence, which resulted in paying a high tax and being unable to achieve victory.”

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Fernando: We repeated the Khorfakkan scenario

The coach of the Bahraini Muharraq team, the Portuguese coach Fernando Manuel, expressed his dissatisfaction with the result of the match, which he said “came despite our success in reading the problem that Al-Wasl is suffering from, and our benefit from analyzing the style of Khor Fakkan, who scored against Al-Wasl, last week, in the professional league.”

Manuel added in the press conference: “We quickly succeeded in opening the scoring, and repeating the same thing when scoring the second goal, so the match ended in a draw, a result that we are not satisfied with in general, but we played hard in a difficult match against a large team the size of Al-Wasl.”

He explained: “We analyzed Al-Wasl’s style in their last match against Khor Fakkan in the league, and we knew that Al-Wasl loves the offensive style, and therefore it is possible to exploit defensive gaps, which we were able to exploit by following the same style and scoring early, whether in the first minutes of the start of the match, or at the beginning of the second half.”