The Al Shabab coach Toninho Cerezo answered fans' prayers by leading his side to a thumping 4-1 win over Sharjah in the second round of the Etisalat Cup Group A on Friday. The defending league champions had the match virtually won after running up a commanding 4-0 lead by the 25th minute. Sharjah reduced the margin a minute later but were never in the hunt after the early barrage of goals from the visitors.
"We wanted to rattle Sharjah from the onset and this strategy worked very well for us," Cerezo said. "We got early goals that set the tone for the match. "We had worked out this strategy after the Al Wahda match, in which we had to come back late for a 3-3 draw. This time we closed the middle and never allowed Sharjah to get into the game." Suroor Salem opened the floodgates in the seventh minute and Marcus Assuncao doubled the lead seven minutes later. Mehrdad Oladi added the third in the 17th minute before Nigerian Musawengosi Mguni hit a fourth on the 25th.
Brazilian Anderson reduced the lead a minute later, and later squandered a spot kick and was off target with a couple of opportunities. Meanwhile, Ajman is proving to be an inhospitable place for visiting teams. The hosts stunned Al Shaab 2-1 in their last game in the Etisalat Pro League and on Friday night upset Al Nasr 1-0 in the Etisalat Cup Group C. Javad Kazemian, the Iran international, scored four minutes into the second half which the promoted club held on to and claimed their first points in the group.
Nasr never found any fluency and did not have any strikes at the Ajman goal for the entire 90 minutes. apassela@thenational.ae