Abu Dhabi: Al Ain coach Zoran Mamic hailed his team’s away 3-2 victory against Uzbekistan’s Bunyodkor in the Group D fixture of the AFC Champions League at Bunyodkor Stadium on Tuesday night.
Mamic was also all praise for his star midfielder Omar Abdul Rahman, who scored a brace including a penalty.
“I thank God for the good result and all credit to skipper Omar Abdul Rahman’s efforts. The fighting spirit that the entire team showed was tremendous. They showed they had a strong desire to return from Tashkent with three points,” said Mamic adding that, the team was desperate for a win after being held at home to a 1-1 draw by Iran’s Zob Ahan.
“We desperately needed to redeem ourselves after the draw in the first round and today we have succeeded in that. He scored three goals on Bunyodkor but we also conceded two goals. We had to then double our efforts to improve in the Champions League, try and follow up with strong results,” added Mamic, who brushed aside the notion that Al Ain was relying heavily on Abdul Rahman alone to get the desired result.
“Certainly, relying entirely on the presence of a star like Amuri is not good, at the same time [it] is not as bad, if you have few absentees due to suspension or injury. However, here we played more powerful and adopted collective style of football,” felt Mamic, who added it didn’t matter how the win came — whether through set pieces or penalties.
“I think the most important thing is to get the breakthroughs regardless of how they came. In the end, it is a goal for the team and I’m very pleased that we have achieved the goals again and again to win the contest,” said Mamic.
Speaking about his team’s showing, Bunyodkor coach Sergey Lushan said his team lost to one of the best teams in the Asian continent.
“It is a fact that Al Ain was better than Bunyodkor. Al Ain showed good character and experience. With their distinctive style and tactics they deserved to win the match,” said Lushan, who accepted that the penalty that took the match away from them was fair.
“I think that the referee called the right decision and we must not think too much on that. We need to prepare better for the remaining fixtures,” added Lushan.
Following the Group C fixture, which left Al Wahda shattered after Mehdi Taremi struck twice in the last nine minutes to steal a 3-2 win for Iran’s Persepolis FC, coach Javier Aguirre said that his team had two clear scoring chances to nail the game but they missed and paid the price in the end.
“We could have killed the game but that didn’t happen. We played better in the second half, however, we fell flat in the last 10 minutes, perhaps, the players panicked,” said a dejected looking Aguirre.
Persepolis manager Branko Ivankovic lauded his team for showing the character to fight back and win.
“I want to congratulate my players for a good game. It was a real hard game and to come back from 2-1 but we deserved it. We led 1-0 in the first half and missed a few good scoring opportunities. Had we scored another goal or two the game would have been safer for us, because I know players like [Sebastian] Tagliabue, [Jorge] Valdivia and [Esmail] Matar are dangerous and can turn the game around at any time,” said Ivanokovic adding that “being in the group of death, the three points were very important” to keep their hopes of qualifying to the knockout round.
