http://www.sport360.com/football/penalty-heartache-al-ain-fall-final-dinamo-zagreb
Penalty heartache: Al Ain fall in final to Dinamo Zagreb
Brave effort: the Al Ain youth team (white) came back twice from behind against Dinamo Zagreb in the final but eventually lost on penalties.
Al Ain youth team coach Abderrahman Arrammal felt his side deserved more as they twice came from behind only to lose the final of the Al Ain International Football Youth Championship on penalties to Dinamo Zagreb.
When Player of the Tournament Marko Alvir produced a stunning overhead kick to give Dinamo a 2-1 lead in injury time at the Khalifa bin Zayed Stadium it looked as though the Croats had done enough.
However, Al Ain, who had earlier cancelled out Mumin Nurisi’s second-half opener with an Uche Odinukaeze penalty, raised themselves to find a dramatic second equaliser through Man of the Match Saeed Ali Alrawahi.
With the scores level at 2-2, the game went to penalties where Dinamo keeper Marko Mikulic saved twice, from Salem Sultan Saeed and substitute Jasem Khaled Abdulla, to secure a 4-2 shoot-out win.
But despite their final heartache, Arrammal was delighted that his youngsters – shorn of the likes of Yousef Ahmad, Ryan Yaslem and Ahmed Barman from last year – were able to make it to the showpiece game.
“I’m so happy with the way we played to reach the final,” Arrammal said. “Thanks to the players, thanks to everybody. We reached the final, we deserved more but thanks to everyone.”
He added: “We weren’t lucky with the penalties. That is something you have to accept in football, but the way we played was a big success.”
In truth, Dinamo were the better side for much of the 90 minutes and while Adel Abdullah Saleh again shone for the hosts, the Croatian side could have been home and dry at half-time had Robert Muric not squandered a host of chances.
As it was, they made the penalty shoot-out look like a procession and coach Igor Cvitanovic felt his side – bar a group game against third-placed Celtic – had produced the best football of the tournament.
“It’s a great feeling, but it wasn’t so easy. At the end I almost had a heart attack,” he said afterwards.
Cvitanovic also revealed that after Alvir’s injury-time goal, he had tried to make a substitution but was denied by referee Fahad Bader.
“We reacted immediately, we wanted to make a substitution but the referee didn’t give us the chance,” he added. “But it doesn’t matter, that’s football, that’s sport.”
In the third-place play-off, Celtic – beaten 2-0 by Al Ain the semis – scored twice in the final 15 minutes to beat Internazionale 3-0.
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