man Al-Ittihad defeated its city rival Al-Ahli 2-1 in a derby match of round 10 of the Saudi Zain Professional League at Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Stadium Saturday. The Tunisian striker Amine Chermiti put Al-Ittihad in the lead with an early goal. Substitute Ali Al-Zubaidi increased the margin before Javier Toledo of Al-Ahli scored in the last second of the added time of the second half. Al-Ittihad succeeded to overcome its thorny technical situation due to the absence of its three key players – skipper Mohammed Noor, Ridha Tukar and Saud Kariri. What worsened the situation were the injury to its goalkeeper Mabrouk Za'id, who was replaced with Tayseer Al-Nutaif, and the sending off of its forward Chermiti midway through the second half. However, midfielder Manaf Abu Shugair made a perfect pass into the box to Chermiti who shot into the goal. Abu Shugair gave the same pass to Al-Zubaidi who was also in the same place and did the same thing in the 84th minute. The only goal of Al-Ahli came through a cross from Mansour Al-Harbi to Toledo who punched into the goal in 30 seconds before the end of the three-minute extratime. With that win Al-Ittihad increased its points to 18 and is still third in the standing behind Al-Hilal (26) and Al-Shabab (23). However, Al-Ittihad has two matches in hand. Al-Ahli is fifth with 11 points and one match in hand. At the Western Region, Al-Qadisyyah shared two goals with its rival Al-Ittifaq at Prince Saud Bin Jalawi Sports City Stadium.
