MUSCAT, FEB 28
Salalah giants, Dhofar and Bahla played out a goalless draw on Wednesday at Nizwa Sports Stadium, in the first leg of semifinal of the His Majesty’s Football Cup championship. The draw kept both teams hopes alive to move into the final match of the coveted cup.
The second leg match will take place at Al Saada Sports Stadium on March 10, as the winner will move to the final, which will be decided later. Dhofar missed the service of his player Nayef Faraj in the 62nd minute after he received the second yellow card, to continue the match with ten men until the end.
Both teams failed to score a goal in the match after many scoring attempts were missed throughout the encounter. Ten times winner entered to the game with an objective to get inch closer to the final match and then to raise the record to 11th title. On the other hand, the hosts Bahla began the match with an eye to progress into the final and get closer to chase up for their first title ever.
Dhofar began the match with a start-up list that comprised goalie Mazin al Kasbi while the defender Abdul Salam Amer was the star in the defending line beside Thani al Rushaidi, Omega and Ali Salim. The rest players of Dhofar were Nayef Faraj, Moutaz Saleh, Ammar Abed, Sultan Badar, Hussain al Shahri and Mohammed al Oraibi.
In the first half, the defending line of both teams managed to broke all the attempts as Salalah giants created some attacking chances. Despite Bahla’s position in the Omantel league as they are struggling in the danger area, they showed top game as Rafael Bastos and Junior made good efforts but it did not found the target.
In the second half, in the 62nd minute Dhofar played with one man less after the international referee Omar al Yaqoobi showed the red card to Dhofar’s Nayf Faraj as he fall down in the box without any interface from Bahla’s defender.
Bahla’s Rafael Bastos was very close to score the first goal for his team in the 77th minute as he received a ball inside the box but his strong ball was saved by Mazin al Kasbi in style. Bahla pressed hard in the dying minutes to score at least a goal, but all the attempts were broke by Dhofar’s strong defending line. The referee Omar al Yaqoobi added eight minutes of additional time but without any new in the result as the match ended with a goalless draw.
Earlier on Tuesday, defending champions Al Nahda played out a 1-1 draw with five times winner Al Nasr in the His Majesty’s Cup semifinal first leg match at Al Buraimi Sports Complex. Both teams will meet in the second leg match of semifinals at Al Saada Sports Complex on March 11.
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