Required to Regain Top Position.. Zoran: Al Ain Deserved to Win Al Jazira
Zoran Mamic, the Head Coach of Al Ain First Football Team, stressed the fact that his team played superbly in an exciting match against Al Jazira. He stated: “I wanted to end the confrontation early compared to the chances we had, but losing chances was a bit disturbing to me. In the second half, we missed five guaranteed chances against the goal of the opposing team; they were like penalty shootouts and this is the main reason why we came out with only one point of today’s game.”
In response to a question if he thinks that the mistake committed by Caio resulting in Al Ain conceded a goal was the reason for the draw, he said: “I think the turning point in the match was the goal we conceded, but the direct cause for the draw result was the wasted chances that enabled the visitors to come back to the match.” He also underlined the issue of injured plyers by saying: “Add to that the difficult situation we faced before and during the match. We already are missing Shiotani, Douglas and Ajab and during the match we missed two prominent players: Amer Abdul Rahman and Bandar Al Ahbabi due injury. This forced us to resort to a number of players of the reserve team: Saeed Jumaa, Mohsen, Rayan and Mohammed Khalfan. Indeed, Al Ain deserved to win but football is always full of surprises.”
On substituting Marcus Berg who was the star of the match, he said: “It is normal to withdraw the player because I am aware of his physical condition. He exerted great effort in his two matches he played in the World Cup Qualifiers against Italy, besides the long journey from Europe to UAE and my team was taking the lead by 2-1 at that time and it was inevitable to replace him to avoid him any further exhaustion.”
Commenting on a question if he thinks that the team suffers from any physical fitness issues giving the advantage to the visitors to draw in the last critical minutes of the match, he denied that saying: “I do not agree with you! The team suffers no physical fitness issues, but it might be an issue for players who suffered injuries for long period and it is a situation that we cannot change. For example, Amer Abdulrahman suffered from an 8-month injury and rejoined the team for few matches and then played with the national team for two full matches and we could not complain about this. Also, Amoory who After his absence from the team for about eight months and his participation in us in a few games joined the team and played two full games and we cannot complain about it and Omar Abdel Rahman who played with the national almost two full time matches following recovery from his injury, while Ali Mabkhout played only the second game with the national team.”
As for the problems he is expecting to face in the coming rounds of AGL following losing the lead position to Al Wasl, he commented: “Losing the lead position is not a good thing, but we are required to work hard to regain our top place at the standing table during the coming matches.” He signed off by saying: “The real problems we are facing currently are the absence influential players like Shiotani and Douglas and hope that Bandar and Amer will be able to join the team sooner. Anyway, we have to look ahead and be optimistic.”
