Khoukhi brace gives Sadd crucial victory over Ahli

BoualemKhoukhi scored a brace to give Al Sadd a narrow 2-1 win at home over AlAhli of Saudi Arabia in the first leg of their AFC Champions LeagueRound of 16 tie at Jassim bin Hamad Stadium yesterday.Al Saddstarted their first AFC Champions League knockout game since 2015brightly, and made the breakthrough in just the third minute as Khoukhigot into the box after a fine exchange with Xavi and coolly slotted homewith his left foot for the opener. Despite the early setback, thevisitors seemed confident of levelling the scores and came close toscoring twice in the space of one minute. However, Ahmed Suhail andSalem al-Hajri produced two goal-line clearances to deny AbdulfattahAsiri and Hussain al-Mogahwi respectively.Just as Al Ahli looked tomake their mark, Khoukhi struck again in the 28th minute, doubling AlSadd’s lead with a powerful header past Mohammed al-Owais followingBaghdad Bounedjah’s cross from the right. Al Sadd thus went into thebreak with a 2-0 lead but a revitalised Al Ahli side emerged from thetunnel with a desire to change things around. They were rewarded justtwo minutes into the second half, with Mohannad Aseri heading in AmirKurdi’s cross to reduce the deficit.That goal set the stage for afeisty second half which saw both sides carve up numerous chances but nogoal materialised. Tournament leading scorer Bounedjah was caughtoffside on multiple occasions while Saad al-Dosari stood his ground atthe other end to deny the Al Ahli forwards.In the dying minutes,Bounedjah missed out a golden opportunity to add a third goal but theAlgerian striker shot it straight to Al Ahli goalkeeper. The resultleaves the tie nicely poised going into next week’s second leg inJeddah’s King Abdullah Sports City.Al Sadd coach Jesualdo Ferreirawas disappointed with the result as he lamented for conceding an awaygoal. Now Sadd need to score in the return leg or play out a goallessdraw for a chance to progress into the quarter-finals. Ferreira’splayers created a fistful of chances during the game only to lack acutting edge and there was the sense that they were running out ofideas.“It was not a satisfactory result for us. It was important notto concede a goal but unfortunately we did. I was not happy with ourdefence today. We could have scored five goals with the number ofchances we created. And in the end we were punished for missing thosescoring opportunities as they scored,” Ferreira said.“This is not agood result for us. Now they need just a goal in the return leg to winon aggregate. It’s a harsh result and I am very sad because of it. Notjust the defenders, the whole team did not defend well. Pedro’s returnfor the second leg will be very important for us. I want to be logical,not pessimistic, but match in Jeddah will be a very difficult for us,”the Portuguese added.Ferreira was also unhappy with Al Saddjam-packed schedule as they have been playing matches every three days.“It’s been a hectic schedule for us as we are playing back to backmatches in different tournaments. My players are suffering from fatigue.And it will be much difficult for us in the coming days. We played thefinal of the Qatar Cup against Al Duhail and then Al Khor in the AmirCup quarters. Today we played again. On Friday, we have Amir Cupsemi-final against Duhail and then we travel to Saudi for the match onMonday,” he said.