TDT | Manama
Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com
Last night, a thrashing 6-1 victory over Lebanese side Nezmeh SC at the Khalifa Sports City Stadium in Isa Town booked a place in the 2023/2024 AFC Cup finals for the rampaging Rifa.
Komail Al Aswad scored in the first half for Bahrain, followed by Majidi Attar, Hashem Saeed Issa twice, and Joel Vinicius Silva dos Anjos and Vinicius Vargas in the final 45 minutes. .
With this result, Rifa achieved their fourth win in five games and moved up to 13 points in Group C.
Coupled with Kuwait’s Al Arabi’s late 1-1 draw with Iraq’s Al Zawra’a, Rifa secured top spot in their pool and qualified for the next stage, the zonal semi-finals, with one game remaining. secured the right. .
It will be an away match against Zaura’a on December 12th at the Basra Sports City Stadium in Iraq. In Riffa’s win last night, Al Aswad scored Riffa’s first goal in the 35th minute.
He took a superb lob pass from Hazza Ali from a quarter of the way down the pitch and headed home.
Al Aswad brilliantly beat the offside trap and timed his way towards goal, heading the ball past Nejme goalkeeper Ali El Sabeh from close range.
This was enough to give Bahrain a lead in the first half. Shortly after the restart, Riffa doubled his advantage.
Al Aswad came on again, this time with a perfect assist for Attar, who scored with his left foot in the 51st minute.
Just a minute later, Issa made it 3-0 with a shot between two Nejme defenders from the edge of the penalty area, and in the 64th minute Dos Anjos scored Rifa’s fourth goal with a short shot from a low cross. . From his teammate Vinicius Vargas.
Issa then scored a double in the 72nd minute, but a moment later Nejme’s Hassan Koulani scored the winning goal.
Vargas then put the final dagger in the coffin with a goal from close range in the 83rd minute.
The AFC Cup is the Asian Football Confederation’s (AFC) annual continental club competition for the continent’s top club teams not participating in the AFC Champions League.
Rifa is the only Bahraini athlete competing in this year’s tournament. A total of 36 participating teams will participate divided into his 9 groups spread across his 5 he AFC zones.
Teams in the West Zone will be divided into Groups A, B, and C.