Zlatko seeks to snatch 3 points from Al Ahli
Introducing his team’s match versus Al Ahli in the Arabian Gulf League, Al Ain’s Croatian coach Zlatko Dalić pledged that his men will keep up their morale, attentiveness and fighting spirit in order to win, raise their tally to 29 points and delight their hardcore fans.
He pointed out that winning over all their competitors including Al Ahli, Sharjah, Hatta and Al Dhafra is our strategic objective in this tournament; “Of course, we’re aware that our objective is not easily attainable; our visitors today will try their best to pay us back for deposing them from the President’s Cup; besides, today’s match is their last chance to improve their position on the leaderboard,” he commented.
Zlatko refrained from explaining the formula that would gain them 6 points if they won today’s match; “I prefer to focus on our immediate match against Al Ahli and then think of the next match rather than dealing with calculations and numbers; which will adversely impact the players’ performance,” he said.
He also refused to comment on refereeing; “It’s not my business to evaluate the referees or analyze their performance. My job is limited to pushing my men for a better performance and results. However, there’s been much talk about this recently. Football definitely involves errors; be it from the players or referees. Let’s not forget that I haven’t spoken about the goal scored by Caio and was wrongfully disallowed by the referee,” he added.
Zlatko was reluctant to talk about any advantage they could make from absences in their competing team. “Al Ahli is not Ribeiro only; the same Al Ain is not ‘Amouri’; it’s a team game. We played our last game versus Al Ahli with 5 missing players, while 2 or 3 players missed their game.” He concluded.
