FOOTBALL ESSA THE HERO AS AL AIN REACH FIFA CLUB WORLD CUP FINAL
Arabian Gulf League champions beat River Plate 5-4 on penalties after game had finished 2-2
Al Ain, they have only gone and done it.
Against all expectations, against all perceived wisdom, the UAE side saw off River Plate last night, outlasted the Argentine heavyweights, the recently crowned Copa Libertadores champions, prevailed on penalties and booked a place in the Fifa Club World Cup final. A potential match-up against Real Madrid awaits.
In the shootout, Khalid Essa repelled Enzo Perez and River’s fifth penalty and sent Al Ain into Saturday’s showpiece.
River’s race was run; Al Ain’s promises something more, something almost unimaginable. Al Ain, Club World Cup finalists.
All the way back, right at the start on another starry night at the Hazza bin Zayed Stadium, Al Ain drew first blood against their storied rivals. Later, they rallied from 2-1 down. In between, they responded to a couple of harsh Video Assistant Referee (VAR) calls. But most of all, they never relented.
And so they dragged themselves back into the match, irrespective of their lofty opponents, irrespective of the fact they had played two matches in quick succession to River’s none.
Apparently, adrenaline allied with the promise of what might come can work wonders for the weary.
The team who first led were the last ones standing. Just like against Esperance de Tunis three days before, Al Ain scored early, once more from a corner from the right.
This time, Marcus Berg tussled with River defender Javier Pinola, the ball glanced a body and found its way into the goal. Berg was credited with the final touch, although no one in Al Ain white, be it on the pitch or in the stands, seemed to care.
Yet the joy was fleeting. Six minutes later, River were level. Khalid Essa did brilliantly to repel Santos Borre’s effort, then Lucas Pratto’s prod, only for Borre to recover to apply the finishing touch on the line.
Within seven minutes, River surged in front. Mohammed Fayez’s wayward pass went straight to Gonzalo Martinez, who slid in Borre at the same time Al Ain’s defence pushed out. With the angle closing, Borre found the corner.
River had done what freshly anointed Copa Libertadores champions are supposed to. In a flash, they had turned around the match.
But Al Ain kept going. Just before the hour, VAR helped convince the officials that a visiting player had not handled in his area under close attention from home captain Ismail Ahmed.
Right on half-time, VAR denied Al Ain once more. The ball ricocheted to Hussein El Shahat, who coolly tucked away his shot. El Shahat and Berg and what felt all of Al Ain celebrated, only for the video replay to show the Egyptian was narrowly offside. However, the ball looked to have come off a River boot before it squirmed free.
But Al Ain refused to wallow. Six minutes into the second half, parity. Caio collected the ball on the left, drove inside and cut back the ball past a rooted Franco Armani in the River goal. Suddenly, it all felt plausible again.
Soon after, Essa saved the UAE champions twice in quick succession. On 68 minutes, River wasted a great chance, Martinez drilling his penalty against the crossbar after Mohammed Ahmed had tripped Milton Cascoa.
Extra time came and went, Mohammed Ahmed going closest. Penalties it was, then, where everyone scored apart from Perez. Al Ain had done it.
The 13th manager of Real Madrid in the 16 years that the current president, Florentino Perez, has been hiring and firing can hold no illusions about the fragile nature of the job.
The European champions play in the Fifa Club World Cup semi-final as holders with a direct entry at Zayed Sports City today.
Santiago Solari, who guides their fortunes, knows he is in the post partly by default, at short notice and is dispensable.
Solari is well prepared, though, for everything his position entails. His experience of the Madrid dressing room as a player educated him in the politics of the club, its hierarchies, and what it takes to win over a demanding support-base.
Solari was a fine, artful footballer, but he had to be patient at times. He was often the 13th man in an 11-man sport.
“The highest-class substitute at the club,” is how Jorge Valdano, a former director of football at Madrid, described Solari in the years when his fellow Argentine was jostling for midfield positions with a superstar trio, Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo and David Beckham.
Then there was the left wing, Solari’s natural zone, which was patrolled by the flying full-back, Roberto Carlos, and the front positions taken by the Brazilian Ronaldo and the prolific Raul Gonzalez.
That stellar cast-list had the Madrid of the early 2000s dubbed “Los Galacticos”, a glamorous collection of players eagerly acquired at record fees by Perez in the first of his two spells as president. Solari stood out in their company for several reasons.
First, there was his talent, which, although he made over half his 208 Madrid appearances from the bench, was good enough that he had a key part, from the starting XI, in perhaps the most iconic goal of the Galactico era.
It was Solari who played the superb, measured pass that set up Roberto Carlos’s cross for Zidane’s arching volley to win the 2002 Uefa Champions League final against Bayer Leverkusen.
There was his intelligence, always vivid in his distribution of the ball, and obvious off the field.
It is reported that Perez, who gained the presidency in the summer of 2000, the same time Solari joined Real from Atletico Madrid, remarked of him: “He thinks too much for a footballer,” and considered him the sharpest trade-unionist in a dressing-room full of forceful personalities.
Many of Solari’s teammates considered him an intellectual for his avid reading; some still talk about their awe and surprise at seeing him clutching a collection of Nietzsche essays.
Solari grew up with football, the son and nephew of players who earned a living from the game in Argentina.
He was a good scholar, and completed his higher education in the US, which is where he perfected his spoken English. His long playing career – which took in 11 caps, spread over six years, for Argentina – took him far and wide.
Having handled the delicate jump from Atletico to Real, he moved to Inter Milan in Italy, where he won Serie A titles to go with his Liga gold medals.
He also played in a 2009 Club World Cup semi-final in Abu Dhabi for the Mexican club Atlante.
His last stop, aged 34, was with Penarol in Uruguay. But the club perhaps closest to his heart is River Plate, where Solari made his senior playing debut as a 19 year old.
Their reunion was not to be as Al Ain sensationally beat the Argentine side on penalties and became the first UAE side to enter the tournament’s final.
Solari was once a teammate of River Plate’s director of football, Enzo Francescoli, and regarded him as an idol, as did Zidane, who had watched Francescoli playing for Marseille as a boy.
Like Zidane, who was
It has not been easy for Solari. He does not have the superstar’s weight of approval that Zidane carried into the post
abruptly promoted to Madrid manager just under three years ago and went on to win three Champions League titles, Solari has come up from coaching the club’s feeder team, initially as a stop-gap.
He replaced the sacked Julen Lopetegui in October, and has fared well enough to be approved by Perez until the end of the season.
But it has not been easy. Solari does not have the superstar’s weight of approval that Zidane carried into the post.
He does not have Cristiano
Ronaldo’s goals to rescue Real in awkward moments.
He has heard the boos of the Bernabeu already, in defeats and even in limp victories.
He may have been the ideal 12th or 13th man on the bench when he was a player, but he knows that some of his current charges – notably Isco – are not so comfortable starting as a substitute.
For the urbane, sophisticated Solari those are just a few of the challenges. A first trophy, one as prestigious as the Club World Cup, would feel immensely soothing.