Football – AL Ahli’s captain and goalkeeper Ebrahim Lutfallah emerged the hero as his club claimed the King’s Cup trophy after a well-deserved win over Muharraq in an exciting final at the Bahrain National Stadium yesterday.
The match ended 1-1 after a goalless extra time and Al Ahli clinched the penalty shootout 4-2 after Lutfallah saved the first two Muharraq spot-kicks.
Brazilian professional Wellington Machado slotted home in the seventh minute after dribbling past two players and chipping the ball into the net over Muharraq’s captain and goalkeeper Sayed Jaafer. Muharraq equalised with a last gasp goal from substitute Hussein Abdulkarim in the 85th minute, thereby taking the game into extratime.
With this victory, Al Ahli have been able to put an end to their failure in the 2020-2021 and 2022-2023 finals and clinch their sixth title in the club’s history while Muharraq maintained their record of 19 titles, the last of which was won four years ago.
Al Ahli owed their precious victory to goalkeeper Lutfallah who came to his side’s rescue on many occasions while also stopping the first two penalties in the shootout.
Muharraq controlled the first half of the match, in general, with ball possession and building attacks but most of their attempts were foiled by of Al Ahli’s defence and the goalkeeper.
Al Ahli surprised everyone with their offensive play from to snatch the lead through Machado. Al Ahli relied on strong defence and rebounding balls, which posed a threat to Muharraq’s goal.
After the first half had ended in favour of Al Ahli, Muharraq increased the tempo during the second half relying on long balls to mainly Feras Shawat.
With the aim of revitalising the teams, consecutive substitutions were made with Abdulkarim, Sofien Mahrooq and Ahmed Al Sherooqi to boost Muharraq’s offence while Al Ahli brought in Dario, Sayed Mahdi Sharaf and Mohammed Al Shamsi. From one of Muharraq attacks, Abdulkarim succeeded in scoring the equaliser bringing hope back to the team’s supporters.
There was drama in between when, for first time in a major Bahrain football match, a game was stopped by a match referee when a fan pointed a green laser at a player.
The victim was Al Ahli’s goalkeeper Lutfallah when Muharraq had a free kick in the second half of extra time.
The referee stopped the game for several minutes.
In the penalty shootout, Al Ahli scored through Abbas Ayad, Al Shamsi, Geovani and Sayed Qassim Ahmed.
Goalkeeper Lutfallah stopped the penalties by Al Sherooqi and Mahrouq while Walid Al Koori and Walid Al Hayam succeeded in finding the net.
His Majesty King Hamad’s representative for humanitarian work and youth affairs Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa attended the match and gave away the trophies and medals.
&uuid=(email))