How Al Jazira turned a difficult fixture into a record start

A retrospective on Al Jazira’s opening five league matches of 2026/27, with the focus on 5 September 2026.

Al Jazira had already shown that they could win without conceding. Their visit to Rashid Stadium on 5 September asked a different question almost immediately. A goal behind inside two minutes against Shabab Al Ahli, they recovered to win 3 to 1 and complete four victories from their first four ADNOC Pro League matches. In a competition where early tables can flatter a comfortable fixture list, the identity of the opposition gave this particular result considerable weight.

The recent history had offered little encouragement to the visitors. Shabab Al Ahli were unbeaten in the previous eight league meetings between the clubs, winning seven, and had taken all three points in each of the last five. Both teams entered this meeting with nine points. Al Jazira therefore had the chance to remove a direct rival from the group with perfect records while also changing a sequence that had repeatedly favoured the Dubai club.

There was a quieter foundation beneath that ambition. Al Jazira had finished the previous league season with a 4 to 1 victory over Bani Yas on 16 May, reaching 44 points. Bruno De Oliveira, Simon Banza and Vinicius Mello all scored in that final match. The same names remained prominent in the opening weeks of the new campaign, giving the attacking results some continuity across the summer rather than making September an entirely isolated burst of form.

The first league assignment of 2026/27 brought a 2 to 0 away win over Hatta on 16 August. Banza opened the scoring before the interval and Ali Almemari added the second in added time at the end of the match. More revealing than the eventual margin was the balance of the chances. Al Jazira recorded 11 attempts and five on target, while Hatta finished with four attempts and none on target, a clear starting point for the defensive record that followed.

At Sharjah a week later, Mello supplied both goals in another 2 to 0 victory. His first arrived in first half added time, and his second followed in the 63rd minute, with Felicio Mendes involved in both moves. Yet the clean sheet also required a clearance on the line from Rocha to deny Laba Kodjo late in the match. That intervention matters when assessing a successful start: a score without a reply can still contain a moment on which the security of the result depends.

The third win, 3 to 0 at home to Ajman on 29 August, added another variation. Igor Eduardo scored just before the break, Yuri Matias diverted a Mendes cross into his own net and Bruno completed the scoring. Ajman had hit the post through Walid Azaro shortly before the opener. Al Jazira’s 62.9 per cent possession and passing accuracy of 89.87 per cent reflected their control, although the sequence of chances showed why the first goal was so important.

Those results made Al Jazira the first club in Pro League history to win its opening three fixtures with a clean sheet in each, according to the competition’s preview of the Rashid Stadium meeting. A fourth opening victory would also be a first for the club in the professional era. The record was therefore within reach before kickoff, but preserving an unblemished defensive return and preserving a winning run soon became two very different tasks.

Guilherme Da Silva’s early finish ended the first of those runs. Malcom Oliveira restored parity in first half added time with an effort that deflected off Igor Gomes Silva, and Marcus Vinicius put Al Jazira ahead from a rebound in the 55th minute. Kristjan Asllani then completed the scoring from outside the area after a Mendes layoff. The visitors had answered an unfamiliar situation this season by producing three goals without conceding again.

The match statistics make the comeback more interesting than a simple account of territorial dominance. Shabab Al Ahli had 61.4 per cent possession and attempted 503 passes against Al Jazira’s 322. Nevertheless, Al Jazira produced 17 shots to the hosts’ 12 and five efforts on target to four. On this occasion, having less of the ball did not prevent them from generating the larger volume of attempts. Their route to victory differed substantially from the control seen against Ajman.

There was also a contribution from the bench in the decisive final goal. The official match record shows Asllani replacing Bruno in the 64th minute before scoring in added time. That is useful evidence of an additional way to influence a match that remained close deep into the second half. With the match still at 2 to 1 before his finish, Asllani added a goal that gave the visitors a more secure advantage in the closing minutes.

Five days later, Al Nasr provided a useful limit to the conclusions being drawn. Bruno scored first at Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium, but Mehdi Ghayedi equalised in the 61st minute and the match finished 1 to 1. Al Jazira reached 13 points from five games, with their winning sequence over. The reversal of the Rashid Stadium pattern was instructive: an early lead this time failed to become three points, just as conceding early in the previous match had failed to prevent a victory.

Taken together, the opening five fixtures offered a more substantial assessment than the word perfect could provide on its own. There were controlled away performances, a productive home attack, a recovery against an opponent with a strong recent record in the fixture and then a reminder of how quickly a lead could be lost. The September win at Shabab Al Ahli remains the strongest single illustration of that range. Al Jazira earned their record start through several different kinds of match, which made the sequence worth examining beyond the table.