Will Quique Flores shine with Al Ahli - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Al Ahli had fired their coach Ivan Hašek after a run of poor results in all competition. Losing from Al Shabab in the GCC Champions Cup ended the Czech manager 2nd stay with the Dubai based club who considered one of the top clubs in UAE Football.

In the end, yesterday's match in Lisbon proved to be more of an afterthought than anything else, as the FA announcement of charges against Luis Suarez (along with FIFA and Sepp Blatter's pathetic effort) dominated much of the conversation. Given that qualification to the first knockout round was already secured for both sides, this one was maybe never likely to gather too much attention, but it was too bad that the final round of the group stage coincided with a major non-development in one of the more troubling storylines of the past few weeks.

Sporting Defeat for Reds Youngsters

Liverpool last night suffered defeat in their opening game of the NextGen series – an unofficial U-19 ‘Champions League' – at Anfield against Portuguese side, Sporting Clube de Portugal. Two goals in the first half and one late on in the second condemned Rodolfo Borrell's side, and though there were certainly signs of improvement throughout the second half, it was perhaps something of a reality check to the much lauded Liverpool players as to how far they still have to go.

Liverpool Starting XI
Belford
Wisdom, McGiven, Sama, Robinson
Coady, Shelvey, Silva, Suso, Sterling
Morgan

Substitutes
Adorjan for Shelvey 59′
King for Robinson 59′
Ngoo for Morgan 59′

The NextGen Series was always about pitting some of Europe's most promising academies against the best, and for Liverpool, coming up against the academy that has won the Portuguese youth championships five years in a row and is widely considered amongst the best youth set-ups on the continent was setting the bar awfully high right out of the gate.