Ghalenoei in good spirits despite Seoul setback

AFC – SEOUL, Despite losing 2-0 to Korean champions FC Seoul in the first leg of their 2013 AFC Champions League semi-final at Seoul World Cup Stadium on Wednesday, Esteghlal coach Amir Ghalenoei has promised that the story will be different in Tehran next week.

Montenegrin striker Dejan Damjanovic and Go Yo-han scored either side of half-time as FC Seoul recovered from making a slow start to move a step closer to becoming the fifth consecutive Korean side to reach the AFC Champions league final.

But despite enduring a tough evening, former Iran coach Ghalenoei insisted the Iran champions are still in contention to add to the Asian Club Championship titles won in 1970 and 1991 at Azadi Stadium next week.

“I would like to congratulate both teams for a beautiful match and especially FC Seoul and the fans. We lost the first half but the second will be in Tehran,” he said.

“We are not disappointed and I believe that we can overcome the deficit in the second leg.

“We played very well and the control of the match was with us but we conceded the goal against the run of play.

“I told the players at half-time not to concede a second goal but due to a mistake we did so.”

Ghalenoei, though, did concede Esteghlal’s failure to score an away goal despite creating several clear-cut chances inside the final 20 minutes could be pivotal.

“One of our aims was to score an away goal, we tried a lot but we couldn’t score, but the conditions in Tehran are completely different and I believe that we can solve that problem,” he added.

“It would have been good if we had scored but I think in Tehran we can score two goals. We will attack a lot and we will play to the best of our abilities in the second match.”

But as well as facing a two-goal deficit next week, Esteghlal are set to be without Iranian international midfielder Javad Nekounam and Anderanik Teymourian due to suspension.

“Now we go home to recover and train and recover physically and mentally and think about how to deal with that issue,” said Ghaleneoi.