Our secret was hard work, reveals Al Ittihad coach

Al Ittihad's winning coach attributed his team's success in retaining the AFC Champions League title to hard work.

"I believe our secret was hard work, hard work, hard work," said Iordanescu, after the Saudi giants won their second consecutive continental title with a 5-3 aggregate win over 2003 champions Al Ain of UAE.

Al Ittihad, who will also receive a $500,000 (Dh1.84 million) as Asian club champions, will now represent the continent in the Fifa World Clubs' Championship to be held in Japan next month.

"My players have told me many times: 'Too much, coach. This practice is too hard and we don't like it.' But now I can say this is the result of their hard work, in all of these eight months.

Mutual admiration

"Maybe, I don't know, sometimes they hate me for all the hard work, but I'm sure now all of them love me! And to tell you the truth, I like them too," said the Romanian.

In eight months, Iordanescu has now added the Asian title to the Arab Champions League (2004-05) which Al Ittihad had won earlier and now they will rub shoulders with the world's best in Tokyo.

Commenting on Saturday's final, Iordanescu said: "We scored at the beginning of the game and this helped us psychologically. I felt we controlled the game and dominated the game with ball possession for almost the entire match."

"We played very intelligently and tactically, showing a lot of discipline," he said after his team registered a 4-2 win in Saturday night's second-leg final clash.

"When they scored their first goal from the penalty spot to make it 1-2, it did put us under little bit of pressure, but we scored again soon after and thereafter we controlled the game."

Al Ittihad skipper Mohammad Noor was named Most Valuable Player of the final, while their Sierra Leone import Mohammad Kallon emerged the top scorer with six goals, one more than the UAE's Subait Khater.