Highly Motivated.. The “Boss” Go on with Preparations for Asian Confrontation against Malkiya
Amidst an atmosphere charged with high morale, the “Boss” go on with their preparations for the match against Bahrain’s Malkiya scheduled to be held on Tuesday 30th January at 6:15 p.m. at Hazza Bin Zayed Stadium as par of the qualifying round for the group stage.
Zoran Mamic decided not to grant the players break time following their match against Shaba Al Ahli Dubai in the Arabian Gulf League ended with 1-1 draw due to the tight schedule and lack of time for recovery and preparation for the coming Asian match. In the meantime, Bahrain’s Malkiya team has already commenced their training sessions at Hazza bin Zayed Stadium on Sunday in line with the AFC competition rules. Worth mentioning, Malkiya delegation arrived in UAE noon time on Sunday and they carried out their evening training session at Khaled bin Abdul Aziz Stadium at Al Ain Club.
Al Ain looks forward to proceed with achieving great results in the new edition of the AFC Champions League, especially as team has been successful to take part in all its editions with elegant presence. As for the last four champions leagues. Al Ain was able to pass the group stage and reach the quarter, semi and final matches proving to be one of the continent’s top teams in the AFC Champions League.
By playing Tuesday’s match, it will be Al Ain’s second time to play in the qualification stage for the group stage. The first match was in 2011 when the team played against the East Asian teams. That stage commenced by meeting Indonesia’s Sriwijaya where the current big stars of Al Ain played for the first time on top was the team’s captain, Omar Abdul Rahman, who scored his first goal in the league from the penalty point. The match ended by 0-4 in favor of Al Ain to directly qualify and join Group 6 teams which had Japan’s Nagoya Grampus, FC Seoul of South Korea and Hang Goh Green Town of China.
Pre-Match Press Conference
The pre-match press conference of Al Ain VS Malkiya within the ACL2018 is scheduled to be held at 05:15 p.m. on Monday, January 29, 2018 at Khalifa Bin Zayed Stadium. The first session will be dedicated for Malkiya Head Coach along with one of his starting lineup players. The second session will commence at 05:30 p.m. and dedicated for Croatia’s Head Coach, Zoran Mamic, and one of Al Ain players to address the media representatives on their teams’ technical preparations for the coming match.
Additionally, the technical meeting for the match will be held at 4:15 p.m. at Khalifa Bin Zayed Stadium Meeting Room. The meeting will be chaired by Maldives’ Match Commissioner, Abdul Ghafoor Abdul Hamid.
Penalty Kicks
Noteworthy, the winner of Tuesday’s match qualifies directly to join Group 4 teams, namely: Saudi Arabia’s Al Hilal, Al Rayyan of Qatar and Iran’s Esteghlal. As stipulated by the regulations of ACL2018, if the two teams draw in the original 90 minutes of the match, they play extra time before the match goes to penalty kicks if the draw result prevails after the extra time.
