It was a crazy game and
Marcelo Gallardo
's gesture at the moment of greatest boiling point perfectly recreates what he had to endure.
The Doll stayed crossed his arms, shook his head and bit the lower lip of his mouth
, in disbelief that he needed
an unusual goal against in
order to be able to get rid of, agonizingly,
Navbahor of Uzbekistan
and qualify for the quarterfinals. of the Asian Champions, the main objective of his first season in
Al Ittihad
in
Saudi Arabia
.
It was 87 minutes into the rematch of the series, which had started with a 0-0 away draw and with the left foot this Wednesday, because striker
Karim Benzema himself scored the Uzbek team's first goal into his own goal
, which complicated the outlook for Gallardo, just after weeks of back and forth on the Frenchman.
Benzema tried to clear a cross, but ended up heading the ball into his own goal and giving Navbahor the lead.
Benzema's unfortunate action put a team that was being eliminated from the tournament in trouble, but before the first half ended, in the sixth minute of added time, the former Real Madrid redeemed himself with a header inside the area that allowed him to push alone. at the far post to the scorer
Abderrazak Hamdallah
.
Karim Benzema playing an Arab League match with the Al Ittihad/Amr Abdallah Dalsh shirt
But the most unusual thing of the night in Jeddah came towards the end: a corner for Gallardo's team led to a bad cross at the near post, but the Georgian forward Tabatadze wanted to reject it and nailed it into the far post of his goalkeeper, who had been the figure until that moment.
Gallardo celebrated, half-heartedly, but he was hugged by some substitutes who jumped on him during the celebration.
He passed Al Ittihad and is probably waiting for the Arab duel with
Al Hilal
, which is the dominator of the current League led by Jorge Jesús and with Neymar in the last stage of recovery from his knee injury.
In the same instance is
Cristiano Ronaldo's Al Nassr
, who with his goal surpassed the rematch of the round of 16 and will face Al Ain starting next Monday, March 4.