Ghalenoei: first Iran now Asia

AFC – ESFAHAN, Having recently clinched domestic glory, Sepahan boss Amir Ghalenoei has turned his attention to continental success, starting with Tuesday’s last 16 game in the 2011 AFC Champions League against Bunyodkor at the Foolad Shahr.

Having topped Group A ahead of Saudi heavyweights Al Hilal, Sepahan earned a home tie against the dangerous Uzbeks but Ghalenoei, while wary of their opponents, is confident they can reach the quarter-finals and continue Iranian teams’ recent strong performances in Asia’s premier club tournament.

“Our objectives are winning the AFC Champions league after becoming champions of the Iran Pro League,” he said.

“We achieved one of our targets in the group stage which was first position and now as we are hosting the Uzbek team in the knockout round, we want to take advantage of this great chance to beat them. Hopefully we won’t have any more injured players except for Ahmad Jamshidian.

“Bunyodkor are a very professional team and they will focus on counter-attacks tomorrow like they did against Piroozi (a 3-1 win in Tehran in the group stage).

“We have analysed their midfield and understood that they are a very good team physically and they play in a good way.

“Three players – number four (Hayrulla Kazimov), number seven (Azizbek Haydarov) and number nine (Anvar Rajabov) – are very dangerous players. They have rejuvenated their team in the last few years and also they have used a fixed system in 95% of their games.”

Ghalenoei also expressed his condolences at the recent death of legendary Iran keeper Naser Hejazi.

Counterpart Mirjalal Kasimov underlined Bunyodkor must be focused as one slip could spell their exit from this year’s competition.

“We have analysed Sepahan so that we are familiar with their strong and weak points. Sepahan have very good players so they will make the game hard for us but I am sure we will see a beautiful match tomorrow,” he said.

“They have a disciplined defensive line and breaching it will be difficult. They have some key players whom we know well. Only one mistake would be enough to end our life at this stage.

“We played against Saipa in the knock-out round two year ago. Sepahan won the league title in Iran so this will boost their spirit in the upcoming match, although we are also standing in first place in our league,” he added.

“Hopefully we will not have any injuries, I hope we will be the winner tomorrow.”