Skocic Still Sees A Good Chance for Foolad Khouzestan

the-AFC.com – TASHKENT, Foolad Khouzestan coach Dragan Skocic believes the Iran champions can still secure a second consecutive appearance in the knockout stage of the AFC Champions League despite Wednesday’s 1-1 draw with Uzbekistan’s Lokomotiv their second stalemate in Group C.

Mehrdad Jamaati’s deflected strike 12 minutes before half-time saw Foolad follow up last week’s opening goalless draw at home to Qatar’s Al Sadd after midfielder Oleg Zoteev had opened the scoring for the home side after seven minutes.

Foolad are now unbeaten in their last 10 games in the AFC Champions League having exited in the Round of 16 last year despite not losing a game in the entire competition.

“I think a draw is a good result for us as we may have lost the match today. We had a lot of mistakes during the match. The players took control sometimes and this is why we are satisfied with the result,” said Foolad coach Skocic.

“I am not pleased with some of the player’s mentality in the beginning of the game. I told them my opinion of them during the match because you lose if players have no concentration.

“Lokomotiv is a good team and they played good football. Our opponents tried to create many chances.

“We have four more matches in the group stage. We played well against Al Sadd and it depends on our next result. We will try to show good football.

“We couldn’t play well in the centre of midfield and on the wings and Lokomotiv had advantage in the midfield zone.”

The draw represented a first-ever point in the AFC Champions League for Lokomotiv after the tournament debutants lost 3-1 to Saudi Arabia’s Al Hilal last week.

“It was our first game at home in this competition and some of the players were under pressure. We scored a fast goal, but then the team went down. When Foolad equalised we began to play well. We created chances, but we couldn’t score,” said Lokomotiv coach Vadim Abramov.

“(Temurkhuja) Abdukholikov tried to play well and help the team, but we had a little pressure and it may have affected the players.

“(Jasur) Khasanov is good when we have enough space, so I chose Zoteev to start today. (Timur) Kapadze needs to recover his form and he will be better after some games.

“The young players can’t play all games with a high level and (Sanjar) Shaakhmedov showed good a performance in Riyadh, but he was not so good today.”