News / Sports

Tractor Sazi falls to Al Ahli in 2018 AFC Champions League

Tuesday, 13 February 2018 8:55 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 09 March 2018 3:00 AM ]

The photo shows a view of the 2018 AFC Champions League Group A match between Iran’s Tractor Sazi Tabriz football club (players in red) and Al Ahli of Saudi Arabia at multi-purpose Seeb Sports Stadium in Oman on February 12, 2018.

Iranian professional soccer club Tractor Sazi Tabriz, also known as Tractor, has gone down to a narrow defeat against Al Ahli of Saudi Arabia in the group stage of the 2018 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Champions League.

Tractor Sazi suffered a 0-1 loss from the Jeddah-based team at the end of a Group A opener played at the multi-purpose Seeb Sports Stadium in Oman on Monday evening.

The Saudi soccer players suffered an early blow after defender Mohammed al-Fatil was withdrawn seven minutes into the match with an injury to be replaced with 29-year-old Brazilian midfielder Claudemir Domingues de Souza, commonly known as Claudemir.

Even though Tractor went to great lengths to assert its dominance, Al Ahli footballers managed to break the deadlock in the 67th minute as forward Muhannad Assiri headed a cross from fellow midfielder Abdulfattah Asiri into the bottom right corner.

In another match of the day, Iranian football club Zob Ahan Isfahan lost to Qatar’s Al Duhail 1-3 in a Group B fixture at the Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium, also known as Lekhwiya SC Stadium, in the Qatari capital city of Doha.

Brazilian striker Kiros put the visiting team in front 10 minutes into the game.

The photo shows a view of the 2018 AFC Champions League Group B match between Iran’s Zob Ahan Isfahan football club (players in white) and Al Duhail of Qatar at the Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium in Doha, Qatar, on February 12, 2018.

The visitors defended resiliently and were successful in keeping Al Duhail attackers at bay.

Karim Boudiaf finally scored the equalizer for the Qataris in the 74th minute.

One minute later, the 27-year-old defensive midfielder got his second of the night from a powerful header after Nam Tae-hee’s cross from the corner.

Tunisian Captain of Al Duhail, Youssef Msakni, rounded the scoring with five minutes to go and sealed a 3-1 victory at the start of the club’s campaign.

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