Al Hilal fight back to deny Al Jazira

Al Jazira's hopes of going beyond the group stage in the Asian Champions League came to an end last night when they surrendered a two-goal lead against Al Hilal.

Yasser al Qahtani scored twice to cancel Jazira's 2-0 half time advantage and Mirel Radoi, the Romanian midfielder, was on target from the penalty spot as the Saudi Arabian side made a remarkable comeback to win 3-2 in front of a 6,154 crowd at the Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium.

The result took Hilal's tally to nine points from four games and leaves Jazira on one point and out of ACL contention. It is the third successive time the Abu Dhabi club have failed to go beyond the group stage.

Jazira scored twice in three minutes to leave the visitors shell-shocked as they headed for the interval.

First Ali Mabkhout completed a superb move that began in Jazira's own half.

Juma Abdulla carried the ball out of defence and found Abdulla Qasem, who chipped the ball to Ahmed Jumaa.

Jumaa headed it on towards Mabkhout, who slotted it home past Hasan al Otaibi, the Hilal goalkeeper.

The celebrations had barely ended when Jazira doubled their lead.

Radoi's misplaced pass gifted the ball to Qasem, who went round Osama Hawsawi before hammering it into the left corner of the net.

Hilal were back in the game when al Qahtani's free kick from 35 yards deflected off the defensive wall and flew over the head of goalkeeper Khalid Eisa and into the net.

Qasem cleared the ball from the line when al Qahtani fired in a shot after being set up by Christian Wilhelmsson, the Swedish forward, who worked his way down the right flank.

But the Saudi international was not to be denied a second time as he tapped in a dipping free kick from Ahmed al Fraidi to equalise at 64 minutes.

Eisa did well in the 74th minute when he pushed over a free kick from Radoi, but a clumsy tackle by Saleh Bargash al Menhali, a second-half substitute, on Hawsawi from the ensuing corner led to a penalty that was easily converted by Romanian.

It was a game Jazira had to win to keep their hopes alive in a group that also includes Sepahan of Iran and Al Gharafa of Qatar.

Despite that, Abel Braga, the Jazira coach, fielded a second-string team with the intention of resting key players after four matches in two weeks, including the President's Cup final, which they won 4-0 over Al Wahda on April 11.

The visitors were on the attack from the word go. Hilal's first shot on target arrived in the 12th minute when Mohammed Al Shalhoub drove in hard from just outside the box and Eisa did well to hold on to it. Eisa was called to action again four minutes later when he held on to a curling shot from Ahmed Aly Kamel. And al Otaibi did well to stop a shot from Khaled Sebil at the other end.

In last night's other game, Amara Diane scored 19 minutes in to lead Garrafa over Sepahan 1-0.

apassela@thenational.ae