Congratulated every ‘Einawi’, Zlatko: Qualification outpaces the match result
Excited by his squad’s qualification for the AFC Champions League finals after years of absence, Zlatko Dalić, Al Ain’s Croatian coach, opened his post-match press conference with a congratulation message in Arabic ‘Mabrook lekul Einawi’ before he posted it at his Twitter account in Arabic too.
“It’s the right of Al Ain fans to rejoice the AFC achievement. Hopefully, our joy will be culminated by with winning the Asian title,” he said.
Commenting on the event, Zlatko said: “As I expected in my pre-match press conference, the game was challenging with a number of surprising changes. We were one goal ahead, and then El Jaish managed to score the equalizer and outpaced us when they scored their second goal. But we succeeded in pulling ourselves back into the game when we levelled in a critical moment of the match. El-Jaish were tough peers, but we brilliantly turned the tide in our favor.”
He praised El Jaish’s performance and tactics of relying on the counter attacks to make a difference; “To be honest, I was not happy when El Jaish succeeded to end the match with the score tied at 2-2. However, at this stage, it isn’t the result that matters but rather to ensure a place at the AFC finals”, he added.
He reminded that throughout his career with Al Ain, his squad played more than 100 matches and never lost by three goals in AFC, AGL or the Super Cup, except for a 0-3 loss to Al-Hilal of Saudi Arabia; “So I never thought we would suffer the same loss to El Jaish,” he went on.
Zlatko highly praised his playmaker Omar Abdurrahman who was awarded ‘Man of the Match’ for the 8th time during the current edition of the AFC competition. “Omar is one of the most talented players in Asia. Even though he plays behind the strikers to orchestrate the offense, he superbly excelled as a defender and forward during today’s match. For my squad, he is as important and pivotal as Cristiano Ronaldo or Messi to their teams”, he concluded.
