Tue, 30 Nov, -0001
Doha: Qatar’s Lekhwiya remained on course for a third consecutive appearance in the group stage of the AFC Champions League after securing a place in the final round of play-offs with a 2-1 win over Bahrain’s Al Hidd on Saturday at Abdullah Bin Khalifa Stadium.
Korea Republic midfielder Nam Tae-hee opened the scoring for last year’s quarter-finalists after 35 minutes before an own goal from Al Hidd defender Habib Naseef doubled Lekhwiya’s lead at the start of the second half.
And despite Naseef making amends on the hour mark, Lekhwiya will now face either Uzbekistan’s Lokomotiv or 2013 AFC Cup winners Kuwait Sports Club next weekend for a place in the group stage.
“We achieved our target from the match as we managed to win and this is what we wanted. We played well, but the problem is that we missed a lot of scoring chances especially in the second half where we could have scored more goals,” said Lekhwiya coach Eric Gerets.
“The play-offs matches are always hard as the opponents give their best and we knew that our task would not be easy.
“We went into the match with good concentration as we were hoping to qualify to the third round and this is what we achieved.”
Lekhwiya dominated proceeding from the kick-off and were finally rewarded for their first half dominance 10 minutes before half-time as Youssef Msakni broke into the penalty area after collecting a pass from Slovakia midfielder Vladimir Weiss and the Tunisian pulled the ball back towards the edge of the area for Nam to fire past Al Hidd goalkeeper Abbas Ahmed.
And Lekhwiya doubled their advantage three minutes into the second half as Naseef could only turn Weiss’ cross into his own net.
The home side continued to dominate, but Al Hidd set up a tense finish as Naseef made up for his earlier mistake on the hour mark as the defender headed home Abdulwahab Al Malood’s cross.
Lekhwiya, though, held onto their lead after dominating the closing stages and will now await the results of Sunday’s delayed second round play-off in Tashkent.
“We faced a strong team who had a lot of experience of playing in the AFC Champions League and they have a strong squad which helped them to win,” said Al Hidd coach Adnan Ebrahim.
“We tried our best to make a good comeback in the second half and we did so as the players showed a great fighting spirit.
“This is our first participation in the AFC Champions League and I believe that our players lacked the necessary experience to play in the competition, but overall they showed a good performance in the two matches that we played.”
Photo: AFP