Al-Minaa Basra took all three points against ZaHo at home in the Iraqi League Regular Season, winning 2-1 on Wednesday evening. The victory lifted the hosts up to eighth place in the standings after four rounds, while ZaHo remained rooted to seventeenth. It was a match decided by moments rather than dominance, and by then the visitors had already tasted defeat in this fixture earlier in the season.
Y. Samia opened the scoring for Al-Minaa in the thirty-ninth minute, putting the hosts ahead before the break. Orinho doubled the lead just before the interval, striking in the forty-fifth minute plus three. ZaHo pulled one back through Pneu Flavio in the eightieth minute, but it was too little, too late.
Statistics told a different story from the scoreboard. ZaHo registered sixty-six attacks compared to Al-Minaa's fifty-seven, and won the throw-in battle twenty to twelve. Yet Al-Minaa were sharper in front of goal, landing four shots on target to ZaHo's two, while the visitors sent seven attempts wide. Possession was evenly split at fifty-one percent for the hosts, and by then the match had settled into a rhythm that favoured whoever took their chances.
Al-Minaa sit eighth with seven points from two wins, one draw and one defeat. ZaHo have only four points from a solitary victory and a draw, having lost two of their opening four matches. The gap between them was visible in the table, and this result did nothing to close it.
Al-Minaa's run of draws had stretched before this win, including goalless stalemates against Az-Zawra and Ash-Shurta, and a 1-1 draw with Al-Talaba. They had also shared a 2-2 draw with ZaHo back in May. ZaHo came into this match after a 1-0 victory over Al-Gharafa, but could not replicate that form in Basra.
The three points mean Al-Minaa move clear of the danger zone, while ZaHo remain stuck in the lower reaches. It was not a spectacle, but it was a result that mattered more than the numbers suggested.