{"id":24531,"date":"2016-03-01T14:54:18","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T22:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=24531"},"modified":"2016-03-01T14:54:18","modified_gmt":"2016-03-01T22:54:18","slug":"acl-md2-group-a-al-nasr-2-0-sepahan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2016\/03\/01\/acl-md2-group-a-al-nasr-2-0-sepahan\/","title":{"rendered":"ACL MD2 – Group A: Al Nasr 2-0 Sepahan"},"content":{"rendered":"

AFC – DUBAI, Nilmar\u2019s improvised overhead flick helped ensure Al Nasr avenged last week\u2019s AFC Champions League defeat at the hands of Sepahan of Iran as the club from the United Arab Emirates ran out 2-0 winners at the Al Maktoum Stadium in Group A of the 2016 campaign on Tuesday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Brazilian\u2019s brilliant close-range goal in the 57th<\/sup> minute was the difference between the teams in a tight game before a stoppage-time penalty conversion by Jonathan Pitroipa sealed all three points for Al Nasr.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an important match for us. The victory was vital because we needed to get the three points,\u201d said Al Nasr coach Ivan Jovanovic. \u201cI\u2019m proud of the performance of our players and I believe that the result was fair because we controlled the match and we were the better side.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should have scored more goals but we managed to win the match thanks to the good performance of the players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Al Nasr threatened from the start and within seconds the home side were awarded an indirect free kick just six yards from goal when Hossein Fazeli knocked Esam Dhahi\u2019s cutback towards Shahab Gordan and the goalkeeper instinctively picked up the ball.<\/p>\n

Ahmed Al Yassi rolled the resulting free kick to Jires Kembo-Ekoko, but his drive was deflected to safety by the Sepahan wall.<\/p>\n

Despite that nervous start, it was Sepahan who should have gone into the halftime break leading.<\/p>\n

A reflex save from Ahmad Shambih following Abdollah Karami\u2019s header of Senijad Ibricic\u2019s cross kept the Iranians at bay while, nine minutes before the interval, Mohammad Khalatbari should have done better than fire off target with the goal at his mercy.<\/p>\n

At the other end, Tariq Ahmed\u2019s off-balance effort following Dhahi\u2019s knockdown flew over the crossbar in the 40th<\/sup> minute while Sepahan\u2019s players finished the half wondering how Fazeli was only able to find the arms of goalkeeper Shambih after Ibricic\u2019s inviting low cross into the six yard box.<\/p>\n

Twelve minutes into the second half, however, Al Nasr broke the deadlock, and it came with a fine piece of improvisational skill from Nilmar, who deftly flicked the ball over his shoulder and beyond the helpless Gordan after a low cross from Hussain Abbas.<\/p>\n

Three minutes later, the Brazilian could have doubled his side\u2019s lead when he was gifted possession close to goal by Karami, only for Gordan to this time be equal to the resulting attempt on goal.<\/p>\n

Sepahan continued to leave themselves exposed as they sought the equaliser with Abbas squandering his chance in the 67th<\/sup> minute before Nilmar, six minutes from time, skied another opportunity to kill off the game over the bar.<\/p>\n

However, Gordan\u2019s upending of Salem Saleh four minutes into stoppage time left referee Ko Hyung-jin pointing to the spot and Pitroipa sealed the win with a confident strike into the bottom corner.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur opponents were more aggressive than us and they showed great determination to win the match,\u201d said Sepahan coach Igor Stimac. \u201cWe made a lot of mistakes and lost several balls which affected us. We didn\u2019t have a good performance tonight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will sit down and look at the match again as the performance was not as expected. Some players didn\u2019t follow instructions. We had several scoring chances which should have changed the result but we couldn\u2019t score with those chances.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC – DUBAI, Nilmar\u2019s improvised overhead flick helped ensure Al Nasr avenged last week\u2019s AFC…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22614,"featured_media":24465,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-c47-featured-news"],"views":1595,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22614"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}