DOHA: Aspire Academy romped an emphatic victory yesterday evening, hitting Vissel Kobe for six and delivering a resounding statement of intent in the process.
Having suffered a 3-2 defeat to Arsenal the day before, Vissel went into the game knowing they must earn at least a point in order to keep their Cup dreams alive.
Yet it was Aspire Academy who emerged the hungrier of the two sides. With a capacity crowd in the stands to cheer on the Doha-born players, Aspire made the most of their home advantage and completely overwhelmed Vissel with their pace and energy up front.
Asserting themselves from the get-go, Aspire bagged their first goal after just four minutes after a crunching tackle felled striker Hazem Shehata on the edge of the Kobe box.
Aspire’s Khaled Mazeed stepped up to float the resultant free kick the ball into the Kobe box. Khalid Al Naimi snuck away from the pack to meet the cross at the near post and fire past keeper Kaito Tsurata.
On 27 minutes the home side doubled their advantage thanks to some individual magic from Khalid Mazeed, who demonstrated incredible confidence to take on four Kobe defenders, break into the box and fire at goal from a tight angle.
Tsuruta could only divert Mazeed’s ambitious effort into the path of Meshaal Faraj, who slotted home with ease.
With the game rapidly slipping away from Vissel, Aspire confounded the Japanese side’s misery by recording their third goal just before half-time.
Newly introduced striker Hassan Palang used his pace to beat Kobe defenders Haruka Motoyama and Tomoyuki Maekawa before finishing confidently, ending Kobe’s chances of progression with 45 minutes still to play. Despite recording 68% possession, Vissel had managed just a single shot on target, while Aspire had converted all three of their efforts on goal.
With the game finishing 6-1, Vissel Kobe are now unable to progress from the group stages. They will however get the chance to fight for some pride on Monday when the 3rd placed teams from each group compete for 8th place. THE PENINSULA
