Purple heart: For Douglas, Champions League offers a chance to finally be accepted at Al Ain

Douglas hit a hat-trick to provide a timely reminder of his ability.

The Al Ain striker had muddled through the early stages of this season, seemingly low on confidence and high on anxiety, again courting the criticism, again fuelling the fire of those who long ago deemed him simply not talented enough to lead the club's attack.

So three goals in the Arabian Gulf League against Emirates club on Thursday helped silence the doubters, however briefly.

More Asian Champions League

• John McAuley: The key match-ups for Al Ain v El Jaish semi-final first leg

• Zlatko Dalic: Al Ain must 'be calm, be careful, play our style' against El Jaish

It lifted Douglas’ tally at Al Ain to 22 goals in 28 matches, and prompted a release on the club’s website in which the first-team’s administrator reminded supporters of the player’s qualities.

Douglas had shown that he does possess the talent, it said. Even when not scoring he still offers much, be it in creating space or chances for colleagues.

Yet Douglas needs to offer more. For some time, the Brazilian has looked a lost soul up front, a perplexing case, incapable of firing Al Ain’s twin assault for domestic and continental honours.

In last month’s Asian Champions League quarter-final first leg against Uzbekistan’s Lokomotiv Tashkent at the Hazza bin Zayed Stadium, Douglas was clearly out of sorts and out of form.

Unable to influence the match, unable to offer a viable threat as Al Ain failed to break down their rivals, his performance was blighted by poor touch and technique. Once more, the home fans vented. In the return leg, once more Douglas disappointed.

It is why he has never truly felt an Al Ain player. It is harsh, given his more than respectable record, especially since he joined the club only in January, parachuted into a side still reeling from the loss of Asamoah Gyan.

Douglas was the second successor to the prolific Ghanaian, the apparent antidote to Emmanuel Emenike, who struggled and stumbled through six months in the Garden City.

Perhaps it is the void left behind by Gyan, the folly of attempting to replace the supposedly irreplaceable.

Perhaps it is Al Ain’s expectant fan base, known as the most demanding in the country. Perhaps it is merely that Douglas does have the requisite skill set, he just requires a little more patience, a little more encouragement.

Perhaps a starring role in the Champions League latter stages would galvanise him.

It could suggest he can be the spearhead of the post-Gyan era. It could finally endear him to supporters. By that stage already beloved, Gyan top-scored in the Champions League in 2014, when Al Ain last reached the semi-finals.

Two years on, Douglas has the opportunity to catapult the club even farther. Even after last week’s goal glut, he goes into Tuesday night’s first leg of the last-four clash with El Jaish with questions surrounding his suitability for the grand stage, against the team where they first began to surface.

In February, in the Group D opener between Al Ain and El Jaish – Douglas’ debut in the competition – he missed a penalty and then a golden chance late on as Al Ain lost 2-1.

He had earlier scored from the spot, but the damage was done at the death, once Douglas lifted a close-range effort high over the El Jaish crossbar. With the criticism on social media rampant, he promptly shut down his Instagram account.

So El Jaish revisited provides the perfect point for Douglas to jolt his Al Ain career. The Champions League matters most to the club, is the title they crave above all others. The UAE’s only continental champions, way back in 2003, they have not returned to the final since the defeat to Saudi Arabia’s Al Ittihad 11 years ago.

Al Ain stand on the verge of another showpiece showing. Douglas, meanwhile, stands at a crossroads.

jmcauley@thenational.ae

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Key facilities

Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
Premier League-standard football pitch
400m Olympic running track
NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
600-seat auditorium
Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
Specialist robotics and science laboratories
AR and VR-enabled learning centres
Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills

The smuggler

Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.

Khouli conviction

Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.

For sale

A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.

- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico

- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000

- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950

The National's picks

4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young

The specs

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Power: 480kW

Torque: 850Nm

Transmission: Single-speed automatic

Price: From Dh359,900 ($98,000)

On sale: Now

Cinco in numbers

Dh3.7 million

The estimated cost of Victoria Swarovski’s gem-encrusted Michael Cinco wedding gown

46

The number, in kilograms, that Swarovski’s wedding gown weighed.

1,000

The hours it took to create Cinco’s vermillion petal gown, as seen in his atelier [note, is the one he’s playing with in the corner of a room]

50

How many looks Cinco has created in a new collection to celebrate Ballet Philippines’ 50th birthday

3,000

The hours needed to create the butterfly gown worn by Aishwarya Rai to the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.

1.1 million

The number of followers that Michael Cinco’s Instagram account has garnered.

Three ways to boost your credit score

Marwan Lutfi says the core fundamentals that drive better payment behaviour and can improve your credit score are:

1. Make sure you make your payments on time;

2. Limit the number of products you borrow on: the more loans and credit cards you have, the more it will affect your credit score;

3. Don't max out all your debts: how much you maximise those credit facilities will have an impact. If you have five credit cards and utilise 90 per cent of that credit, it will negatively affect your score.

Real estate tokenisation project

Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.

The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.

Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.