By Jaber Al Ajmi — MUSCAT: April 25 - Al Hilal SFC (KSA) qualified to the knockout stages of the AFC Champions League as they drew 0-0 with the newly Iranian Champions Persepolis in the round five of Group D on Monday at Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex. The Saudi giants benefited from the goal scored away in the 1-1 draw with Persepolis as they now have nine points on top of the group while the Iranian side are in third place with six points. At the post-match press conference, Al Hilal manager Ramon Angel Dias said: ‘We secured qualification which is the most important thing for us and I am very happy for that. It was a tough game but we were very coherent and we missed 2-3 golden chances.’
Dias continued, ‘I started the match with three centre back defenders in order to stop the offensive opponent’s attack and we did well.’
In an interesting game which was attended by around 10500 people, the newly crowned Iranian champions were the better side in the first half and wasted a couple of golden chances while Nawaf al Abid missed a chance for Al Hilal the lead in the first minutes as he received a pretty pass but shot it off target.
‘We played very well and we had many chances to score but we were not lucky’, Croatian Branko Ivankovic, Persepolis manager said.
In the 37th minutes, the Iranian national team forward Mehdi Taremi missed a goal as his ball went out.
In the second half, Dias made a substitute by entering the left back Abdullah Zori instead of the centre back Jahfali and changed the formation from 3-4-2-1 to 4-2-3-1, but nothing changed, Ivankovic’s side continued their ball possession and attack.
‘’We knew that we need the three points and we did everything possible but we did not reach them’’ Medi Taremi said in the press conference.
Meanwhile, Al Wahda (UAE) made the group more complicated as they thrashed Al Rayyan (QTR) 5-1. Now, Al Hilal are group toppers with nine points ( W:2, D:3), Al Rayyan in second place with seven points ( W:2, D:1, L:2), Persepolis in third with six points ( W1, D:3, L:1), and AL Wahda forth with four points (W:1, D:1, L:3).
The score of this game put Persepolis in tough situation for qualifying for the knockout stages as they will need to beat AL Wahda, not only that, on the other side, it requires the loss or draw of Al Rayyan against Al Hilal.
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