Zenga plays down significance of first Champions League win

Dubai: Al Nasr coach Walter Zenga was quick to play down the Asian Champions League in his list of priorities despite lauding his team's historic first win in the competition.

An Amara Diane brace handed the home side a 2-1 victory over Qatar's Lekhwiya at Maktoum Stadium on Wednesday night.

For the first, Luca Toni controlled and curled Abdullah Mousa's goal kick into the path of Diane, who needed two bites of the cherry to score on 36 minutes.

Beli Dagano's free-kick on 41 minutes brought Lekhwiya level, but Diane struck again with a last-gasp winner in stoppage time after following up Jamal Maroof's shot, much to the delight of the home support.

Satisfied

Zenga said: "I'm very happy with this historical win tonight.

"We are satisfied after this deserved victory.

"I think this kind of win in this competition is very hard.

"It's tough especially as we are playing in a very hard group with Lekhwiya of Qatar, Al Ahli of Saudi and Sepahan of Iran."

"Regarding qualification to the second round, I'm not thinking about that yet.

"I'm just concentrating on our next league game with Al Ahli [Dubai] on Sunday and our training sessions.

"I didn't prepare the team especially for the Champions League this season.

Competitive

"I've been working with Al Nasr a year-and-a-half and I just want to prepare a good team to be competitive in the local league.

"We're not talking about the Champions League."

Zenga's side lost 1-0 away to Sepahan in their first and only other Champions League group fixture to date.

He said the Al Nasr squad had never played so many games in such a short space of time.

"It's most important we concentrate on ourselves in the UAE Pro League and [only] try to catch some points in this prestigious competition [the Asian Champions League]," Zenga said.

"But we have to be honest with ourselves, this is the first time we've played so many fixtures so close together in such a short period of time. But we are going to try."

A remedy to the fixture overload comes in the exurberance of youth, according to Zenga.

"We have some very good young talent in Jamal Maroof, Younus Mubarak and Habib Fardan," the Italian said.

"I want to encourage the youngsters without forgetting the others who worked hard for 90 minutes."