Abu Dhabi: Nobody does positivity in adversity better than Henk ten Cate, the Al Jazira coach.
Ten Cate’s perpetual sunny disposition has been a welcome sight in a trying season for the Abu Dhabi outfit, whose AFC Champions League hopes ended on Wednesday evening with a 1-0 defeat away to Al Hilal.
Brazilian striker Ailton’s goal nine minutes before half time left Al Jazira bottom of Group C with a solitary point, three adrift of third-placed Pakhtakor from Uzbekistan.
But Ten Cate, who replaced Abel Braga as coach in late December and who has led Al Jazira away from the spectre of Arabian Gulf League relegation to seventh place, was far from downbeat afterwards.
“I’m happy with the performance of our players against Al Hilal despite the defeat,” the Dutchman said. “We had a good performance in the first half and we surprised our opponents, but we couldn’t score from the chances that we created in the early minutes.
“We tried our best to make a comeback but we lacked the necessary experience and fighting spirit to level the scores. In general, I’m happy with the performance of the players and hopefully we can learn from the lessons of tonight.”
Al Hilal coach, Giorgos Donis said: “The win is very important for us and I’m satisfied with the performance of the players.
“Everyone knows that we are going through a tough period and we have a lot of pressure due to the heavy match schedule.
“We created many scoring chances but we couldn’t convert those chances into goals and this affected us a lot. We should try our best in order to fix this issue and hopefully we can improve in the next matches.”
Al Hilal’s victory was thoroughly merited on account of their superiority throughout.
With just six minutes gone, Yasir Al Shahrani should have done better when he tried his luck from 12 yards out, only for goalkeeper Ali Khaseif to push his shot to safety.
Twelve minutes later, Al Hilal missed the best opportunity of the game when Abdul Aziz Al Dawsari sprinted down the right wing before cutting inside along the byline and firing in a low cross that was narrowly missed by Yousuf Al Salem at the near post and Ailton further back.
It took Al Jazira until halfway through the period to register their first attempt on goal when the former Al Hilal midfielder, Thiago Neves, curled his free-kick from just outside the area over Fahad Al Thunayan’s crossbar.
That was to prove one of the Abu Dhabi side’s few sights of goal and, with nine minutes left in the half, Al Hilal took a deserved lead. Al Dawsari’s cross from the left was headed down by Al Jazira striker Kenwyne Jones and on to the head of Ailton, who steered the ball into the net.
With a one-goal lead, Al Hilal continued to control the game. Ten minutes after the restart, Al Dawsari took aim from outside the area only to find the arms of Khaseif and, with five minutes to go, Al Dawsari lashed an effort over the bar when he should have doubled Al Hilal’s advantage.
Three minutes from time, Al Jazira had a rare sight of goal when substitute Ahmad Al Hashmi raced into the penalty area, but his attempt found the side netting.
Elsewhere, Iran’s Tractor Sazi maintained their supremacy in Group C – they are top with nine points, one ahead of Al Hilal – after goals from Augusto and Saeid Aghaei earned them a 2-0 home victory over Uzbekistan’s Pakhtakor.
