Abu Dhabi: Just when it looked like fatigue was taking a toll on Al Ahli players, the comeback act of Brazilian Joceil Ferreira da Silva, popular as Ceil, after an 18-month injury lay-off was a huge boost for coach Cosmin Olaroiu and for Red Knights.

Ceil’s double in the opening match of Arabian Gulf League’s second phase saw Al Ahli script a crucial win over Al Fujairah and Olaroiu was all praise for the ex-Al Shabab forward.

“Ceil is very important for the team and he can pitch in as striker and can be very effective in the wing. I’m glad he came back strongly today,” said Olaroiu, adding, “He has suffered a lot in the last period due to his injury but was determined to do well. When the opportunity came, he made it count and scored two goals.”

With this win, Al Ahli continue to stay close to leaders Al Ain with 34 points - three less than the latter. “We deserved to win and things worked after change in plan in the second half,” said Olaroiu, who was of the view that the team has to improve and find solutions while playing against teams that are not very competitive.

Saturday night also saw Walter Zenga’s Al Shaab hold Bani Yas to a 1-1 draw. The team, bolstered with new foreign signings they bagged their third point in their winless season so far. However, a lot of work needs to be done if they have to pull themselves out of the relegation zone.

The Brazilians Marcos de Santana and Jose Eduardo along with Uzbek centre-back Shavkatjon Mulladjanov showed a lot of promise.

“For us, we need to win points from every game because of the situation we are in. We didn’t play that well in the first half but we came back strongly in the second half,” said Zenga, adding that, once they got the equalizer the team pushed for win.

“The players showed what they can do. This is another face of our team. We saw what the foreign players can do. Obviously, with more time they can do better. They showed strong attitude, more commitment and played good.”

Bani Yas coach Luis Garcia was utterly disappointed with his team’s showing in front of home fans.

“We didn’t play well. I don’t want to find fault against the players as an excuse but none of them played to their potential. It was one of the worst games we played this season,” said Garcia, adding that, the absence of Amer Abdul Rahman due to one-match ban following three yellow cards and injury to Ahmed Haboush also hurt the team dearly.

Meanwhile, Al Wahda, who got the second half of their AGL campaign on a high beating Dibba on Thursday, boosted their strikepower with Korean Chang Woo Rim on a two-year contract from K-League’s Ulsan Hyundai.