(Fr) Al Shabab 1v0 New York Cosmos

Thursday 6th March 2014

Maktoum Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Stadium, Dubai, UAE   Attendance

New York Cosmos' kicked off their Pre Season campaign with a 1v0 reverse against Al Shabab of the UAE League. The Asian side are currently 2nd in their domestic League, and having already been several games into their campaign, were expected to be much sharper than the Cosmos at this stage.

 Shabab threatened early on and Cosmos needed Maurer and Nelis to clear an effort off the line after 6 minutes, but it was the Cosmos who reated the better chances early on with Szetela hitting the crossbar after 11minutes with a 25 yard effort.

 5 minutes later and the Shabab Keeper was required to keep out an effort from Dimitrov after a move involving debutant Stokkelien and Szetela. Stokkelien almost capped his first appearance with a goal, but his header from  corner was cleared by the defence.

But the only goal of the game came from the home side, 7 mins before the interval when a long ball behind the full back was brilliantly taken down by Edgar, and then managed to slip the ball past Maurer for the game winning goal.

Just before half time Maurer was called into action to prevent Cosmos from falling further behind, keeping out a rocket from the UAE side.

The second half saw many changes, with Cosmos giving opportunities to some trialists, but the New y
York side could not pull back the deficit as the UAE side ran out narrow winners in a tight game.