{"id":42197,"date":"2021-04-21T18:44:51","date_gmt":"2021-04-22T01:44:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=42197"},"modified":"2021-04-21T18:44:51","modified_gmt":"2021-04-22T01:44:51","slug":"acl-group-c-esteghlal-beaten-by-al-duhail-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2021\/04\/21\/acl-group-c-esteghlal-beaten-by-al-duhail-video\/","title":{"rendered":"ACL Group C: Esteghlal beaten by Al Duhail [VIDEO]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Tehran Times &#8211; JEDDAH, <strong>Esteghlal football team of Iran suffered a late defeat against Al Duhail of Qatar in Group C of the 2021 AFC Champions League Wednesday night at King Abdullah Sport City Stadium in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Both sides went into the Matchday Three encounter hopeful of extending an unbeaten record, with Al Duhail having collected four points from their opening two games and Esteghlal having earned the full six points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ahmad Mousavi\u2019s whipped cross from the right was converted into the back of the net through Amir Arsalan Motahari\u2019s powerful header just four minutes into the match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Al Duhail\u2019s response did not take long as Abdullah Al Ahrak\u2019s long ball into the box was controlled by Edmilson who then fired a left-footed effort from six yards out that was parried by goalkeeper Mohammad Rashid Mazaheri into the path of Michael Olunga who nodded home the equalizer in the 10th minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Kenyan striker then added his second of the night, pouncing on a misplaced pass from Esteghlal center-back Masoud Rigi to seize possession inside the box and slot home Al Duhail\u2019s second just before the half-hour mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Coach Farhad Majidi\u2019s men were determined to get back into the game and 10 minutes before the half time break, they had restored parity as Farshid Esmaeili supplied a defense-splitting pass to Motahari who squared it across the face of goal for Cheick Diabate who was left with a simple tap-in for his third goal of the 2021 AFC Champions League.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just before the referee prepared to blow the half-time whistle, Al Ahrak found space inside the Esteghlal area and swept home Mohammad Musa\u2019s low cross from the right flank to put the Qatari side in the lead again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The game\u2019s end-to-end action continued after the restart with Esteghlal equalising a second time as Diabate\u2019s header from the corner was blocked by Benatia but fell to club captain Esmaeili who sent a diving header into the empty net to make it 3-3 with his third goal in as many games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Five minutes before the final whistle, Olunga completed the first hat-trick of the 2021 AFC Champions League, controlling a cross from substitute Ismael Mohammed and driving home his side\u2019s winner on the turn to round off an entertaining battle for the top spot in the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the win, Al Duhail topple Esteghlal off the summit of Group C as the Qataris move to seven points, leaving the Iranians a point behind. The two sides lock horns again three days later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"#ACL2021 - Group C | AL Duhail SC (QAT) 4 - 3 Esteghlal FC (IRN)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/01lsSpj-zf8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tehran Times &#8211; JEDDAH, Esteghlal football team of Iran suffered a late defeat against Al&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":42198,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,173,84,136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-esteghlal","category-c47-featured-news","category-iran-first-division"],"views":604,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42197","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\/26307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42197"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42199,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42197\/revisions\/42199"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}