Al Jazira top with victory over Al Rayyan

Reigning UAE Pro League champions Al Jazira became the sole leaders of Group A in the AFC Champions League after beating Al Rayyan from Qatar 3-2 on Tuesday night, while Esteghlal of Iran and Nasaf played out a goalless draw in the same group. Al Jazira opened up a 3-0 lead by the hour mark following goals from Ricardo Oliveira, Ebrahim Diaky and Abdullah Mousa before allowing the visitors to score twice through Daniel Goumou and Fabio Cesar as they lost a bit of focus late in the game. Caio Junior, the team's new Brazilian coach who watched the match from the stands because he is serving a three-match touchline ban, said before the match that he had been working on shoring up his side's defence. But the players made the same mistakes they have in recent matches and were forced to endure a nervy final ten minutes. Junior admitted the mistakes but added he was pleased with the performance of the strikers and the fact his team won. "It is important that we won the match because Al Rayyan played a good game," he said. "The match was a strong attacking game and we were the better team till we scored the three goals. "Al Rayyan attacked, which was natural, but we committed some individual mistakes and allowed them to score twice. "We will work on this side. I am pleased that the team is improving from one match to another and I am sure that we will do better in the remaining matches." Al Rayyan coach Diego Aguirre said: "Our problem is in attack, We don't score many goals from the chances we create. "It was the same reason why we lost our first match against Esteghlal and the same reason why we lost this match. "Al Jazira have scored three goals from less chances than we had." Al Jazira's next match will be in Tehran against Esteghlal, while Al Rayyan will host Nasaf in Doha.