Hernan Crespo\u2019s side trail 2-1 from the opening encounter in Japan last week after Kota Watanabe scored with six minutes remaining to give Harry Kewell\u2019s outfit a slender advantage going into the return leg in the United Arab Emirates.
\n\u201cI\u2019m pretty sure the fans will fire up the stadium for the 90 minutes, I hope so,\u201d said the centre-half. \u201cWhat I want from them is they fire up for the whole game, from minute one until the last second.
\n\u201cI believe the fans will play a big role in that game. Always believe in football. There are some details we need to be better in, we players know this. We will work on it and I’m sure in the second leg we\u2019ll do well.
\n\u201cBefore any game we play we know we have the Al Ain crest on our chests, we represent ourselves and we represent our country in this tournament. We are pretty confident about ourselves and I hope the confidence we have in ourselves will help us as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Al Ain are appearing in the final of the competition for the fourth time and are looking to win their first continental title since lifting the trophy in the inaugural season of the AFC Champions League in 2003.
\nThe 21-year wait for a second success after falling agonisingly short in 2005 and 2016 is fuelling a push for the title that has already seen Al Ain overcome Saudi Pro League duo Al Nassr and Al Hilal in this year\u2019s competition.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s why everybody wants this trophy so bad,\u201d said Al Hashemi, \u201cand I hope from the bottom of my heart that we can give happiness to everybody in our country.\u201d<\/p>\n
The style of play Al Ain are facing against the J1 League side differs from that encountered when playing teams from within their own region, and it is that challenge Al Hashemi acknowledges his teammates need to tackle to win the title.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s different schools and from what I\u2019ve seen tactically they are very good,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat we faced against Al Nassr and Al Hilal, their centre-backs are not really good footballers but this team has really good footballers, especially at the back.
\n\u201cWe need to be careful of this, we need to stick tight with them, body to body because I know physically they\u2019re not really good when you get tight with them and fight for the ball. We need to work on that.”<\/p>\n
\u201c(In the second leg) I think the other team will defend, so we will attack. We need to concentrate on the counterattacks and the second balls, their strikers are really good, they\u2019re from Brazil and we know them already.
\n\u201cWe have to be aware of that and also the set-pieces. I think they\u2019ll play using set-pieces and counterattacks. So it\u2019s our stadium, our fans. They have the lead now, they\u2019re one up, so I hope we will attack.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hernan Crespo\u2019s side trail 2-1 from the opening encounter in Japan last week after Kota Watanabe scored with six minutes remaining to give Harry Kewell\u2019s outfit a slender advantage going into the return leg in the United Arab Emirates. \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure the fans will fire up the stadium for the 90 minutes, I hope […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":981478,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20967],"tags":[3733,28042],"class_list":["post-981477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afc-news","tag-afc","tag-afc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=981477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/981478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=981477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=981477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=981477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}