Toni Takes the Rap as Uzbeks End Tractorsazi’s ACL Adventure

AFC – TABRIZ, Tractorsazi coach Toni Oliviera took the blame for his side’s 2-1 loss at the hands of Nasaf that saw the Iranian side exit the 2015 AFC Champions League on Tuesday.

Two goals from Turkmenistan international Artur Gevorkyan consigned the Iranians to a third defeat in Group D and even victory over Al Ahli from the United Arab Emirates on Matchday Six will not be enough to pull the club from Tabriz into the top two places.

“First of all, I want to highlight that the person who should be blamed for the loss is myself,” said Oliviera (pictured). “During the entire game, we put on a great performance, but at the end we came out losers.

“We kept the Uzbeks under our control, but they were smart enough to convert the two chances they had, so they ended up coming off the pitch as winners.

“In the time I have been here, we have played our best matches in the AFC Champions League, but when we look at the points, we’ve only accumulated four so far.

“Talking about today’s match, I’m very satisfied with the performance, but not the result.”

Mehdi Kiani gave the Iranians the lead but two goals in the second half from Gevorkyan secured all three points for Nasaf, with the win ensuring the Uzbekistan side go into the last round of group matches with a chance of advancing to the last 16.

Nasaf are on seven points from five matches and no matter the outcome of the game between Al Ahli from Saudi Arabia and their namesakes from the United Arab Emirates, the Uzbek side can go through with victory over the Saudis in two weeks’ time.

“It was a good game, but we our mission is yet to be completed,” said Nasaf coach Ruzikul Berdiev. “There’s one more game left, so we need to keep trying.

“In the first half, Tractorsazi created quite a few chances, but we were lucky not to concede more. Our aim for now is to qualify to the next round.

“My team’s organisation might not have been very good, but what mattered for us was to beat Tractorsazi in Tabriz, which is what we achieved.

“Yesterday, the weather was much windier, the strong wind affected the game, but we were lucky the wind let up during the course of the match. I didn’t expect Andranik Teymourian to start the game on the bench and I believe his early absence helped us grab the win.”