Al Shehhi goal restores order for Al Wahda

Josef Hickersberger and his side return to the capital after beating Al Nasr in their first win in six matches.

The Al Wahda players, in white, were admittedly nervous against Al Nasr in Dubai last night after a shaky start to their season.
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DUBAI // Josef Hickersberger was a relieved man yesterday as Al Wahda returned home from Al Nasr with their first win in six matches.

After starting the season with a Super Cup victory over Al Jazira and then an Etisalat Cup triumph at Al Ain, Wahda lost four games on the trot before a 2-2 draw against Al Ain last week.

An opportunistic 12th-minute strike from Mohammed Al Shehhi after a defensive error, however, brought that winless streak to an end in Dubai.

"I have certainly not seen a good match," Hickersberger, the Wahda coach, said. "Both teams were under pressure because they had only one point from two league matches. You could see it. There was a lot of nervousness.

"So the quality was not as high as I would have liked it to be, but fortunately, we won the match. I accept these points gratefully because they are very important for the matches to come."

This win took Wahda's tally to four points, but Nasr are still languishing with just one from their first three league games.

Their next match is on Friday, away at city rivals Dubai, and coach Walter Zenga decided to take his team straight back out onto the pitch for a short training session, immediately after the loss.

"I am really sad that we have still not found the keys of victory," said Zenga, the Italian goalkeeping legend. "We made one mistake and lost the match. My congratulations to Wahda, but I don't think they deserved to win the game.

"They didn't create anything, but this is football.

We just have to keep going, continue working hard and I am sure the results will come in future." Nasr released Carlos Tenorio, the Ecuadorean striker, before the transfer window closed last week and have decided to give Ismael Bangoura, the Guinea forward, a paid holiday after he was banned for shouting abuse at a linesman in Nasr's opener at Al Ain.

Zenga's men took the field with two new foreign strikers, Amara Diane, an Ivorian, and Rodrigo Vergilio, a Brazilian. Neither made an impression.

The visitors deservedly got an early lead. Two minutes after Abdullah Moosa's desperate save from an Amer Omar volley, the Nasr keeper was left helpless after a shocking error from one of his defenders.

An innocuous ball had made its way into the box, straight to Mahmoud Hassan Darwish.

The Nasr defender could have done as he wished with the ball with no pressure from the Wahda forwards.

Instead he let the ball run under his foot and Al Shehhi, lurking behind the defender, gratefully blasted home. Diane had a golden chance to level the scores in the 18th minute, but with only the keeper to beat, he shot straight at Wahda's Mutaz Abdullah. In the 34th minute, Diane was again in prime position to level, but, like Darwish, his foot failed to make contact with the ball.

"In the first half, they worked really well," said Zenga of his two new recruits, before talking about the shortage of players at the club.

"There are some problems that people don't know about," he said. "If you have 24 players, you can only work with 24 players. I have never cried about my problems and have instead tried to solve them.

"I will try to do the same. We have to resolve our problems and try to do the best with the players I have."

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