REAL BETIS AND ŽILINA QUALIFY TO HZB U-16 INTERNATIONAL FOOTBALL TOURNAMENT
Slovakian Žilina has qualified to the final match of the Hazza Bin Zayed U-16 International Football Tournament as they were able to win UAE’s Al Jazira by 4-1 in the semi-final match held at Tahnoon Bin Mohammed Stadium in the semi-final round of the tournament. Žilina will meet Spain’s Real Betis in the final match after they have beaten Argentina’s Deportivo by 2-1. The two teams will meet on the closing day at 6 p.m. on Sunday 15th April 2018 and the winner will be crowned with the title of the 10th edition of the tournament.
It was only five minutes after the kickoff whistle, when Mohammed Khaled sent a powerful shot from the edge of the box to the away corner of Žilina’s goalkeeper, Ljubomir Belko, granting the lead to his team. Žilina players found themselves in a hard situation while trying to level the result while Al Jazira’s players attempted to enhance the result and to add another goal and make the Slovakian team’s mission so hard.
The players of the two teams doubled their efforts and intensified their attacks in anticipation of hitting the net, but all attempts were wasted until the 26th minute. The players of Žilina organized a quick attack and Vladislav received the ball on the right side of the pitch to pass it on to Adrian Cabrali who confidently sent a powerful shot into the back net of Al Jazira’s goalkeeper. This sent the match back to square zero and the two teams started over again to score the leading goal. Al Jazira’s head coach substituted Ali Mohammed Obaid by Mohammed Abdullah in his quest to score another goal but Nawaf Al Harthy got the red card due sever tackle against one of Žilina’s players to be sent off the itch at 36th minute. The two teams were not able to score again and the first half ended by the result of 1-1.
Al Jazira and Žilina teams enter the pitch at the start of the second half with high ambitions to take the lead early via scoring a second goal that will make the mission of the other team so complicated and to qualify to the final match. However, Žilina players were the fastest side to reach their goal when Salih Al Harthy committed a foul against Adrian inside the box and Žilina were granted a penalty shot. Adrian scored his team’s second goal (50) as he sent a powerful penalty kick to the right side of Al Jazira goalkeeper Abdullah Al Hammadi. After five minutes Adrian received a deft pass and penetrated inside the box and when Al Jazira’s defender tried to tackle the ball he sent it inside his team’s net by mistake and the result became 3-1 in favor of Žilina. The situation became more complicated after Hamdan Jamil received the second red card in the match in the 64th minute due to severe roughness. The Slovak team got a second penalty for blocking Žilina’s player Novak inside the box. Philippe Skertiel played the penalty shot and scored his team’s fourth goal in 73rd minute. The situation remains the same without any change until the end of the match and by that result Žilina qualified to the final match by their four goals scored against Al Jazira.
