Match Of The Week: Al Ahly 2-4 Pachuca
The FIFA World Club Cup got under way last week, and it’s time to bring you all up to speed with the latest events from Japan. Three matches have already been played, and there’s now break until Wednesday, when the first semi-final match is to be played. Then, on Thursday morning (GMT), Manchester United enter the fray with their semi-final, with play-off matches preceding a double-header of the third and fourth place play-off match and the final next Sunday in Yokohama. The tournament opened with a poor match between Adelaide United and Waitekere United from New Zealand. One might have expected this to be a comfortable win for the A-League professionals, but they made hard work of winning this match. They fell behind eleven minutes from half-time when goalkeeper Eugene Galekovic fumbled a fairly straightforward catch from a cross to allow Paul Seaman to stab the ball into the unguarded goal. Waitekere’s lead, however, lasted for just five minutes before Adelaide levelled things up, with Daniel Mullen being left unmarked in the penalty area to head the ball past the impressive Richard Gillespie. With seven minutes left to play, captain Travis Dodd headed in a free-kick from Paul Reid to win the match for Adelaide, and set upĀ quarter-final match against Gamba Osaka. Adelaide weren’t impressive in their opening match in the slightest, but they were considerably improved in...
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