As for the West, some of the old usual suspects up there such as Al Ain and Al Hilal, while it was pretty disappointing from Persepolis considering that they are vastly superior in their domestic league, before starting I thought they have a decent shot at making it to the finals this year now they need to wait for other results to see if they are advancing.
Persepolis couldn't hold the last season team together specially losing Alisha and our CBs hurt the team the most. We received many easy goals specially vs Al Rayan and Al Wahda. Last season team could win with many goals. This year we played the entire season with only 1 CB in our entire team! Have you ever seen any professional team to have only 1 CB? I blame the coach and the person who handles transfers in Persepolis. The guy name is Torkashvand and he made a side deal with a garbage Croat reject CB and two completely out of form Ukrainian players who didn't play entire season. Some people destroy a team just to gain few more dollars and fill up their own pocket. Taremi is also the most horrible forward I have ever seen in Persepolis. He is not a finisher and wastes too many goals.
Reports say Kawasaki fans nearly caused a post-match riot by angering some Suwon fans when they raised a rising sun flag in the match. What a shameless act. It's not the first time J-league fans do this in the ACL but useless AFC don't take any action at all against these idiots.
Wow, AFC did something good. Kawasaki was fined $15,000 and ordered to host one future match in AFC matches without spectators. The stadium spectator ban was suspended for a probationary period of one year, though.
What a dramatic come back for Persepolis! We won the match 4-2 vs Al Wahda (uae) and Al Hilal destroyed Al Rayyan 4-3. Now Persepolis and Al Hilal advance to next round. Persepolis will be competing with Lekhwiya and Al Hilal most likely plays against Esteghlal Khuzestan.
I feel really bad for Al Wahda but it kinda funny they were so happy when they took Rashid Ali their current GK from Al Wasl after his good performance in the mid half of the season they thought that their goalkeeping issue was solved now look at his highlight with them costing them Al Hilal game the great 1st goal assist, the other game result was perfect for both teams to advance the more experienced did, as for Al Wahda they got the Cup final to win if they want to return next year
Iran ended up with 3 of its 4 teams in the next round. Esteghlal Tehran and Esteghlal Ahwaz both advanced today, with Perspolis advancing yesterday. To advance, Esteghlal Tehran needed to make sure it wouldn't lose its game against its Saudi opponent by 4+ goals. Esteghlal Tehran ended up winning 2:1. With Lekhwiya of Qatar beating its opponent, Esteghlal Khuzistan would have advanced regardless of its result against Al Jazeera, with that game ending in a 1:1 draw.
In the next round, incidentally, Perspolis (IRN) with face Lekhwiya (QAT). Esteghlal Tehran will face Al Ain (UAE) and Esteghlal Khuzistan will face Al Hilal (KSA).
Yeah it's Lekhwiya vs Persepolis... will try and go to the game here in Doha, the stadium's literally right across the street from my office. Just wondering about Lekhwiya, next season they are merging with Al Jaish and re-branding the club "Al-Duhail SC". That's supposed to start with the kickoff to next season. So what about the Champions League? Should Lekhwiya advance to the quarterfinals, will they compete as Lekhwiya or Al-Duhail? Will they take in El Jaish's players Rashidov, Romarinho, etc? Is that even allowed? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Duhail_SC
Interesting. I don't know the answer to your questions, but hopefully they will not matter as I am cheering for Perspolis to beat Lekhwiya
I won't matter as these games will be in May, before the merging takes place from what I believe, but should they lose could be Lekhwiya's last game as know of them...
Lekhwyiya seems to have a good team, but I am not going to miss them and would be very much thrilled if the last I heard of them was losing to Perspolis Perspolis and Esteghlal are, incidentally, Iran's 2 most popular clubs but it has been a while since they were both really our best 2 clubs as well. This year, though, Perspolis won the league rather handily and Esteghlal finished runner up. I am hoping to see both go far in this tournament and for one of them to lift the AFC CL trophy that has alluded Iranian clubs. The road ahead will be difficult for both, but both have a decent shot.
I wonder why Al Hilal played aggressively to win this match when it was of least importance to Al Hilal as Al Hilal was already assured a place in the next round... Though, this kills the so-called thinking that Arab support Arab since Al Hilal's win paved the way for Persepolis to qualify to the next round otherwise, Rayyan would have had qualified with Al Hilal for the next round with a win against Al Hilal... Actually, Iranian club fans should admire the favour given by Al Hilal to them with this win which assured Persepolis safe passage to the next round.
Al Hilal wanted to win the group and avoid playing the winner of the other group, Lekhwiya. But certainly it was good to see them beat Al Rayyan (who finished with 7 points), although even a draw would have been sufficient for Persepolis (who finished with 9 points) to advance. But certainly if Al Hilal had lost to Al Rayyan, Persepolis would not have qualified, with Al Rayyan finishing first and Al Hilal finishing 2nd in that case.
Round of 16 representatives Iran: 3 Saudi-Arabia: 2 UAE: 2 Qatar: 1 ---------- China: 3 Japan: 3 South Korea: 1 Thailand: 1
Saudi Clubs and Qatari clubs are always in cross heads and they don't like each other. I doubt the approach would have been same if it was a UAE club.. Also , at any time Saudi clubs are stronger than any of there counterparts in ACL if only they focus on it ..After Hilal's fiasco against Western Sydney , no Saudi clubs are much interested in playing ACL seriously and you can look at the FA too when they decided to send Tawoon and Fateh to ACL when they had Nasser and Shabab who could have played in ACL..
There shouldn't be problems with this merger as one of clubs in question isn't part of competition. It would be interesting if both Lekhwiya and El-Jaish qualified to knock-out stage. And Persepolis will qualify to next round anyway.
It doesn't happen all the times but it is good to see Al Hilal played fair and squire. Al Hilal wanted to be the first team of the group so they didn't care much about Persepolis or Al Rayyan advance with them, according to Diaz , coach of Al Hilal.
Yes, indeed... it was terrible referring by the Japanese referee in the 2nd leg in Riyadh... and it was also unprofessional on part of AFC to allow the result of that 2nd leg to stand when as comparison to professional body such as FIFA, AFC should have had made the match result null & void due to various referring mistakes in that match that cost Al Hilal the match, and should have had ordered a reply of the match similar to FIFA's decision of replaying Uzbekistan vs Bahrain World Cup Qualifyer Play-Off match in which, ironically, it was yet again a Japanese referee who made a blunder of error specially in not replaying the penalty kick... Not sure if I recall if it was the same referee or not who officiated the final in Riyadh between Al Hilal and Western Sydney Wanderers.
Emirati teams for the 2018 AFC Champions League: Al Jazira (1st) Al Wahda / Al Nasr (Cup finalist, league position 5th & 6th) Al Wasl (2nd) Al Ahli (3rd) Al Ain will miss the competition for the 1st time since 2012 which was before Konami bought the tournaments copyright, last time Al Wasl participated was in 2008 as league & cup champions also Kuwaiti and Iraqi teams had the chance to participate and only one team qualifies from the group stage back then. All 5 teams best performance Al Jazira : (Round of 16 -2012) Al Wahda : (Semi-final -2007) / Al Nasr : (Quarter-final -2016) Al Wasl : (Semi-final -1993) [3rd place] Al Ahli : (Finals -2015)
After Hilal and Gharaffa match which Hilal scored in deep injury time and went to win in ET that proved to install bitter relations with between the clubs