Substitute Khalid Bawazir and Ben Malango scored two goals within four minutes to help Sharjah to a well-deserved and hard-fought 2-1 win against visiting Al Jazira in ADNOC Pro League’s fifth match-week, that was held under the slogan ‘Saudi National Day’.
Al Jazira’s Ali Mabkhout stunned the hosts with a very early goal 84 seconds into the game before his side endured a blow with a red card that left them with 10 men for the rest of the encounter.
Despite that, the men from the Capital managed to keep the marauding Sharjah attack line at bay for most of the second half.
Both sides’ chances grew equal when Sharjah’s Bernard Dwarte was sent off in the 67th turning it into a 10 vs 10 game.
Al Jazira maintained the lead until substitute Bawazir who came off the bench to replace Luan Pereira stepped up to net the equalizer in the 82nd minute after being gifted an assist from Otabek Shukurov.
Provided with a handful of scoring opportunities earlier, Ben Malango eventually put his name on the scorers’ list after being set up by the other substitute Alhasan Saleh in the 86th minute, to help the home team gain full points following last week’s disappointing loss to Shabab Al Ahli.
Sharjah took their tally up to 12 points to slip into second place behind Al Ain (13 points), while Shabab Al Ahli (11 points) and Al Jazira (10) occupy the next two spots heading into next week’s sixth round of the UAE ADNOC Pro League.
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