Ittihad Kalba. vs. AL JAZIRA PRE-MATCH PRESS CONFERENCE

Abu Dhabi: Sep. 21, 2023

The coach of the first team, Frank De Boer, revealed that his playmaker Khalfan Mubarak will miss Saturday's match against Ittihad Kalba due to a muscle injury, and expressed his confidence in the team's ability to perform and fight in this match to leave from there with the three points.

Here are the coach’s quotes from the press conference he held yesterday at the club.

Khalfan Mubarak Update

“Khalfan is suffering from a muscle injury and he will not be with us when we travel to Kalba, but he is recovering well and he will join his teammates on Monday when we start preparing for the following league match. Everyone else is in good shape and we are preparing very well for Saturday's game and I am confident that we will be ready to give our best and fight to win and get the points”.

Eye on the Opponent

“They are very organized and their main strength is their attack, they have fast and strong forwards and they are very good at transforming quickly from defense to attack and this was very obvious in their match against Khorfakkan when they won 5:1. It was also clear when they scored 3 against Sharjah, they lost that match, but scoring three goals against a team like Sharjah means that you are very strong at attack”.

Defensive Performance of Al Jazira

“We are always analyzing our performance and working continuously on improving every aspect. We conceded goals in the last matches but this didn’t happen because our defenders were poor. For example, the goal we conceded from Baniyas in the last match came from a very far free kick, and no player can be responsible for that. We defend and attack as a group, and we saw how close our defenders came to score against Baniyas. There is a margin of improvement in our performance, and I am confident that we will do much better in the near future”.