{"id":29235,"date":"2017-09-28T12:04:52","date_gmt":"2017-09-28T19:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=29235"},"modified":"2017-09-28T12:04:52","modified_gmt":"2017-09-28T19:04:52","slug":"analysis-al-hilal-take-their-chances-to-tame-persepolis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2017\/09\/28\/analysis-al-hilal-take-their-chances-to-tame-persepolis\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysis: Al Hilal take their chances to tame Persepolis"},"content":{"rendered":"

AFC – ABU DHABI, Saudi giants Al Hilal put one foot firmly in the 2017 AFC Champions League final after a thrilling 4-0 demolition of Islamic Republic of Iran’s Persepolis in the semi-final first leg on Tuesday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Their coach Ramon Diaz showed tactical astuteness and the players’ clinical finishing.<\/p>\n

Pace Over Power in Persepolis Attack<\/p>\n

Finding themselves without the physical presence of striker Mahdi Taremi, Persepolis looked to exploit the space behind Al Hilal\u2019s attack-minded full-backs.<\/p>\n

Coach Branko Ivankovic deployed pacey strikers Ali Alipour and Godwin Mensha.<\/p>\n

The latter came close to finding an early opener inside the first five minutes when he latched onto a long pass behind Al Hilal defence, but defender Abdullah Al Hafith came to the rescue.<\/p>\n

Mensha\u2019s early chance proved to be a rarity as Al Hilal coach Diaz had devised a plan to counter the threat posed by Persepolis\u2019 attack and it worked efficiently as Mensha and Alipour managed just one shot on target between them all evening.<\/p>\n

Al Dawsari Key Attacking Outlet<\/strong>
\nRamon Diaz set up with Salman Al Faraj and Nicolas Milesi in midfield anchored by Abdullah Otayf and flanked by Salem Al Dawsari on the left and Carlos Eduardo in a wider than usual role on the right.<\/p>\n

Al Dawsari, filling in for injured Nawaf Al Abid, was used as the main attacking outlet owing to his pace and direct style.<\/p>\n

Diaz strategy worked well as Al Dawsari created more chances (four) and took more shots (five) than any other player on the pitch.<\/p>\n

The winger assisted two of Al Hilal\u2019s four goals on the night. Fortunately for Persepolis, Al Dawsari squandered chance after chance as the score remained limited to 4-0.<\/p>\n

Taking Chances Matters<\/strong>
\nAl Hilal had less possession than Persepolis (48.2 percent to 51.8 percent respectively), they played less passes (429 to 446) and delivered significantly less crosses (12 to 26).<\/p>\n

Crucially, Diaz\u2019s men were more clinical; they delivered a larger percentage of their crosses (33.3 percent to Persepolis\u2019 19.2 percent) and were more composed in front of goal (46.7 percent shooting accuracy compared to Persepolis\u2019 30.8 percent).<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Omar Kharbin was in a deadly form, scoring a perfect hat-trick; first a header, then with his left foot and finally with his right. The all-important stat read, Al Hilal 4-0 Persepolis.<\/p>\n

Full-Backs Make the Difference<\/strong>
\nWhen Ivankovic targeted the space behind Al Hilal\u2019s full-backs, he showed knowledge of the opponent; Yasir Al Shahrani and Mohamed Al Burayk did storm forward at every opportunity to support attacks.<\/p>\n

However, Diaz had set up his midfield such as to have Al Faraj and Milesi cover for marauding full-backs, thus preventing Persepolis players from moving into this space.<\/p>\n

The central midfielders\u2019 extra-defensive duties allowed Al Hilal full-backs to prosper.<\/p>\n

Between them, Al Shahrani, Al Burayk and Abdulla Al Zori, who was introduced in the second half, scored a goal and created two more.<\/p>\n

The heatmaps show Al Shahrani spent a considerable amount of time in the opponents’ half while Al Faraj who occupied the left central midfield role spent a chunk of the game covering at left back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC – ABU DHABI, Saudi giants Al Hilal put one foot firmly in the 2017…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":29236,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,84,164,136,165],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-c47-featured-news","category-ipl","category-iran-first-division","category-persian-gulf-pro-league"],"views":2659,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}