Al Dhafra suffered a 3–1 defeat against Ittihad Kalba in their ADNOC Pro League Round 8 encounter at Hamdan Bin Zayed Stadium in Zayed City, Al Dhafra Region, on Saturday, November 7, with kick-off at 4:55 PM.
Al Dhafra made a strong start to the match and took the lead in the 20th minute when Sorry Kaba found the back of the net, giving the home side a deserved advantage.
However, Al Dhafra’s task became more difficult in the 29th minute when striker Karim El Berkaoui was shown a straight red card, leaving the team with ten men for the remainder of the match.
Despite being a man down, Al Dhafra managed to preserve their 1–0 lead until half-time.
Ittihad Kalba came out strongly after the break, taking advantage of their numerical superiority and putting Al Dhafra under sustained pressure. The visitors equalised in the 50th minute through a penalty converted by Benjamin Tetteh, before Ahmed Noorullah scored their second goal just two minutes later to turn the match around.
Al Dhafra made three substitutions in the 83rd minute, with Ryan Yislam replacing Mohamed Al Hammadi and Yousef Al Marzouqi coming on for Dramane Koumare. In the 90th minute, Rodriguesinho replaced Mohammed Al Khaloui in a final attempt to change the course of the game.
Deep into stoppage time, in the 95th minute, Antonio Valmor scored Ittihad Kalba’s third goal to seal a 3–1 victory for the visitors.
The result sees Ittihad Kalba move up to ninth place in the league standings with eight points, while Al Dhafra drop to 11th place with six points.