Newcomers Naft Tehran Happy to be in Last 16

AFC – AL AIN, Coach Alireza Mansourian was a relieved man after seeing his Naft Tehran side qualify for the Round of 16 in the 2015 AFC Champions League despite suffering a 3-0 defeat against Al Ain on Wednesday.

Omar Abdulrahman, Asamoah Gyan and Jires Kembo-Ekoko found the back of the net for Al Ain, but the Iranian club join the 2003 champions in qualifying for the next round from Group B thanks to Al Shabab’s 2-0 win over Pakhtakor in Tashkent.

Naft finished the group on eight points, four adrift of Al Ain but crucially two ahead of Pakhtakor and will now meet Al Ahli of Saudi Arabia in the Round of 16, with the first leg in Tehran on May 20.

“We went into the match looking for a win, but we failed to do so although we are happy that we qualified to the knockout stage which is the most important thing for us tonight following the win of Al Shabab against Pakhtakor,” said Mansourian.

“We played against a strong team who outplayed us in the second period and we conceded unexpected goals from defensive mistakes. We hope that we can fix these mistakes in order to go as far as we can in the competition.”

Al Ain, meanwhile, cruised through the group emerging undefeated from their six group matches and will now play their United Arab Emirates compatriots Al Ahli in the next phase. The first leg will be in Dubai, with the second leg on May 27 in Al Ain.

“We are happy to qualify for the knockout stage as group winners. We got 12 points, which is better than we achieved in the previous edition of the competition and this means that things will be promising in the next period,” said coach Zlatko Dalic.

“We didn’t perform well in the first half but the players were determined to put in a good performance and get a win in order to please our fans, especially as this was our first victory at home in the competition this year.”