Malaysia are up to 6th in the East and will take Hong Kong's direct ACL slot in 2019. In the West, Tajikistan knocked Lebanon out of the top 12 and assuming their champions get the AFC license whey will play in the 2019 ACL preliminaries against Iran's 4th team.
Persepolis Tehran 0-0 Lekhwiya (Qatar) Persepolis was pretty much the dominant team but wasted many opportunities one after another. Lekhwiya had a strong defense better than Al Rayyan, Al Wahda and even Al Hilal. Nam Tae He and a Brazilian player were great and created a couple of good opportunities for Qatari side. One hit the woodwork and another shot was saved by Beiranvand, goal keeper of Persepolis. Other than that Qataris were less impressive and better in defending. Qatari goal keeper Qasem Burhan was impressive today. Persepolis played an offensive style first 10 minutes of both halves and tge last 20 min of the match; for the rest of the match they had a combination of defensive style and counter attacks which didn't work for them. From all opportunities Persepolis players created there were few worth mentioning. A sitter lost by Mohsen Musalman, another sitter lost by Vahid Amiri and an easy goal opportunity with no goal keeper defending the goal lost by Taremi. The worst case was when Taremi lost another PK as it is getting a norm in Persepolis now. He lost another PK in match vs Al Rayyan in Tehran. There was a good opportunity in first half when Persepolis player hit the ball to Qatari defense hand in penalty area. It was an obvious handball but referee couldn't see that. The rest of the match was just a combination of losing ball possession with wrong passes in the middle and poor game plan by both sides. Persepolis coach just realized the situation around min 70 and injected young blood to the team pretty late. It helped them to increase the pressure but the blunders by Taremi and Amiri wasted all the effort. Now, Persepolis have to defeated Lekhwiya in Qatar which is less possible but it can be done. Esteghlal Khuzestan 1-2 Al Hilal (KSA) From highlights I saw they were pretty decent considering the situation in their club (bankrupt), they scored the first goal and had good opportunities up front but they couldn't capitalize on them and conceded two easy goals in second half. SS khuzestan goal keeper Sheikh Veisi was pretty good and saved few shots. The defense was out of sync and disorganized which lead to two goals specially on first goal where no SS Khuz defense was covering the Saudi players. Al Hilal could score more if they were a little more careful on their last touches. Overall good performance by this bankrupt team against the best Saudi team.
As I knew this would happen sooner or later. You can not be lucky all the times or have people in FA who fix the matches for you. When you hire a low class unprofessional coach with no management license you sign your own demise. Al Ain walked over SS Tehran (6-1). Now I want to see delusional SS fan who were talking shit about Persepolis. Your team is just embarrassment for Iranian football. Get a proper coach now.
It was shocking to see Eshteglal playing so badly..Defence and Midfield was shambles..Hope they come back next year with a strong team .. Ahli KSA wins against Ahli UAE 3-1
Guangzhou win the tie against Kashima on away goals，that means there will be two csl sides in quarter final. and another interest fact is that guangzhou had never been eliminated by J-League sides in ACL knock-out stage.
Persepolis only DM, Kamal Kamyabinia, had a surgery and will be out for at least 2 weeks. From experience I can tell whenever we don't have Kamal, our defense is vulnerable specially if we use a garbage player like Rabihkhah on LB position. Our forwards were sloppy in first leg but they promised to deliver this time. This match vs Lekhwiya should be entertaining if we keep our defense line organized.
Yeah o e thing is that it's been VERY windy today here in Doha. Hopefully it clears up by 10pm, but not exactly the ideal conditions for football..
Ok besides mansoorians shitty tactics you guys gotta remember half of esteghlals team was missing the 2 midfielders the 2 omids (omid ebrahimi and omid noorafkan) and the idiot made all 3 changes before the 50th minute, also the whole esteghlal defense is made out of shitty foreign players megooyan (Armenia) padovani (Brazil) Robson (Brazil) compare our Brazilians to Al Ain Brazilian (caio) who scored their first 2 goals that's what happens when you buy shitty 3rd rate foreigners and don't wanna spend money like arabic teams even their Koreans player was much better than all our foreigners. Omar abul Rahman is probably the best player in the afc champions league but if he faced an actual good defense he can't do much as he has showed time and time again against Iran national team with uae and against other physical teams like Australia that's why I don't think he will succeed if he goes to Europe. As for all the perspolis fans first win the champions league once then open your mouth the fact remains esteghlal is still the most successful team in Asia alongside alhilal with 2 titles and 2 second place finishes and bunch of thirds n semis.
Seriously dude! Padovani was a great player in Naft Tehran even scored for them in ACL last year. Mgoyan is a heavy weight CB and not a fast player to cancel Omar Abu Al Rahman. Mansourian came to this match just for a draw and used his players in so many wrong ways. It is not all on players but mostly on your coach. He is an idiot. Why didn't he brought so many younger and faster players that you guys have. Why Barzay should sit on the bench while he was among few who could help SS turn that result around? SS Tehran splashed a lot at the beginning of this season, spending twice of Persepolis and several folds compared to the rest of the Iranian clubs. He had so many good players. Only Omid Ebrahimi's absence is understandable to have a negative impact on SS but not that much to justify the absolute s...t show we saw yesterday. SS needs good coach not GN, Mazloomi, Marfavi, Mansourian or Majidi. You need a new Raykov to change your team fundamentally. Your players are relatively good if you know how to use them. On your second part: Wining ACL in 1970 playing against four team from south east Asia is not something to be proud of. You won ACL last time in old format in 1990 when we won Asian Cup which was comparable with ACL back then in 1991. Those old relics are not something to be proud of now. For past 27 years our teams couldn't win ACL so stop talking about 50 years ago. We are living at present not the past. At this time your team got thrashed and we are still struggling vs Lekhwiya. Instead of talking BS about your rival, fix your problems, fire your coach and don't be an embarrassment for Iranian football if you can.
Guys we are through although we should have scored 2 more goals at least. Lekhwiya played well and entertaining as well. Both teams were wasteful on goal opportunities. Congrats Persepolis hard luck Lekhwiya.
Breaking News: J-League side Kashima Antlers released their coach Masatada Ishiii as the club fail to qualify from ACL round of 16, eliminated by Guangzhou Evergrande due to away goals, Ishiii had lead Kashima Great success in 2016 season, finished runners-up in Club World Cup, won both J-League and Emperors' Cup. Meanwhile, CSL side Jiangsu Suning may release their coach Choi Yong-Soo if the club could not beat Shanghai SIPG in ACL round of 16 clash, Jiangsu lost 1st leg 1-2 in Shanghai.
Official draw for Quarter-final will be on June 6th West Asia Al Ahli Jeddah （Saudi Arabia）1985,2012 Runners-up Al Hilal Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) 1991,2000 Champions, 1986,1987,2014 Runner-Up Persepolis Tehran (Iran) Al Ain (UAE) 2003 Champions, 2005, 2016 Runner-Up East Asia Urawa Reds (Japan) 2007 Champions Kawasaki Frontale (Japan) Guangzhou Evergrande (China) 2013, 2015 Champions Shanghai SIPG (China) and this picture is posted by a SIPG fans in Chinese social media lol
I was very upset when few Kawasaki fans brought that ugly, disgraceful flag into Suwon. There was little argument back-and-forth between Suwon and Kawasaki fans after the game.
A shot form Lekhiwya vs Persepolis match the other night.. Seriously if the point in football was to come as close to scoring without actually putting the ball in the back of the net, these two teams would be world champions, but as it was the windy conditions and some really wayward finishing meant that only a Chico Flores own goal separated these two sides. congrats Persepolis, but that was probably Lekhwiya's last ever game under that brand, as they will be merged with Al Jaish next season under the name Al Duhail Sports Club. Judging from the crowd probably a wise decision to try and garner local interest. Also not sure why they moved the game from Lekhwiya's home stadium to Al Sadd... maybe because only Al Sadd Stadium has the appropriate cooling functions. Anyhoo, congrats Persepolis, RIP Lekhwiya!
looks like he will probablly tack in charge of another CSL/China League one team, Beijing Guo'an is looking for a new coach, and some other clubs may have new coach in summer break too
We were missing our only regular DM, Kamyabinia so Persepolis played a little more defensive compared to regular game plan we have. It was also hard for our players to play in hot and humid condition of Qatar. Iran is a lot cooler compared to Qatar and Tehran is not humid. Even foreign players of Lekhwiya had trouble for 90 min. You are right that both teams were a little sloppy on their finishing but we witness an entertaining match from both side. If the weather condition was better, the quality game could have been a lot better. Thank you for your info and photo. About the goal: If Chico didn't kick the ball our forwad Vahid Amiri could score. Vahid was right behind him and nobody could stop him. I feel bad for Chico. He tried so hard to score for Lekhwiya after the own goal.
As expected considering team's awful form this season. Would be nice if AFC changes format and mix teams from quarterfinals, this "conference scheme" is easily getting boring.
I think they won't change it until a Western Asian side actually win it, anyways the format has some positive, ie clubs doesn't make long travel makes matches more competive, more regular clash between regional powerhouses bring historical topics etc
Yes, but I feel like we watch the same matches over and over again. There is time for rivalries, in groups and first KO round. I'd really love to see clubs mixed in quarters or at least in semis.