ACL SF (2nd Leg): Esteghlal 2-2 FC Seoul

AFC – TEHRAN, FC Seoul became the fifth consecutive Korean club to reach the AFC Champions League final as the K-League champions drew 2-2 with Esteghlal on Wednesday to complete a 4-2 aggregate victory over the Iranian side in their semi-final.

Leading 2-0 from the first leg, FC Seoul extended their advantage at the Azadi Stadium with a delightful chip by captain Ha Dae-sung late in the opening half.

It left Esteghlal needing four goals to turn the tie around but they made a game of it in the second half, cutting the deficit with strikes by Jlloyd Samuel and Mohammad Ghazi before Kim Jin-kyu converted a penalty for the visitors 10 minutes from the end to effectively kill off the match.

FC Seoul will now meet Chinese double winners Guangzhou Evergrande in the two-legged final with the first match at Seoul World Cup Stadium later this month.

With Esteghlal needing to overturn a two-goal deficit, the match began at a frenetic pace with the hosts eager to claw back a goal while Seoul sought to absorb the pressure and hit their opponents on the counterattack.

Having sat out Esteghlal’s last two AFC Champions League matches, Siavash Akbarpour was recalled by coach Amir Ghalanoei to fill the void left by the suspensions of midfielders Javad Nekounam and Andranik Teymourian. And he was quickly into the action with a shot in the opening minute that was deflected wide for a corner.

Dejan Damjanovic had scored in Seoul’s previous three matches in the competition but the Montenegro international striker should have done better as he headed an early attempt straight at goalkeeper Mehdi Rahmati.

Esteghlal turned up the heat as Ahmad Jamshidian had a shot deflected wide and Akbarpour saw one attempt brilliantly blocked by the head of Kim Chi-woo before he fired narrowly wide with a fierce drive from 25 meters.

And shortly after Sergio Escudero had curled a shot narrowly wide for the visitors, Esteghlal skipper Farhad Majidi volleyed an attempt into the net off the right post only to see his effort disallowed for offside.

With the home fans still ruing the disallowed goal, FC Seoul then struck with a killer goal in the 37th minute. The home side half-cleared a corner with the ball coming out of the box to Ha, who eluded a challenge from Jamshidian with a delightful turn before launching a precise chip that sailed over the Esteghlal defence and Rahmati into the top right corner of the net.

The precious away goal left Esteghlal needing to score four times in the second half to keep alive their hopes in the competition.

But their early pressure in the second half would reap rewards as Samuel met Pejman Nouri’s corner from the right with a thumping header from point blank range that flew into the net.

Despite the goal, FC Seoul still looked the more likely team to score again with their swift counterattacks producing a number of opportunities for Damjanovic to put the tie beyond the reach of their hosts.

But he wasted his chances and those misses looked like they might prove costly when Ghazi burst through the middle of the FC Seoul defence and rapped his initial attempt against the right post before gathering in the rebound and firing the ball into the opposite corner of the net to make it 2-1.

But just as the Iranian side threatened to set up a dramatic conclusion to the match, they conceded a penalty in the 80th minute after Hanif Omranzadeh tripped up Cha Du-ri in his box.

Kim Jin-kyu was unerring with his spot kick as he drove the ball into the top left corner to seal his team’s place in the final.