GOAL - JEDDAH, Persepolis coach Mustafa Denizli has lamented his side's mistakes which he believes ultimately cost them after they were bundled out of the 2012 AFC Champions League following a 3-0 Round of 16 loss away to Al Ittihad on Wednesday.

Naif Hazazi converted a 36th-minute penalty after Sheys Rezaei's foul inside the box, before Abdelghani Faouzi pounced on Persepolis' defensive hesitation to make it 2-0 before the break. Abdoh Autef added a third late on to send the Iranians crashing out of Asia early once again.

"We had too many mistakes and it surprises me," Denizli told reporters after the game. "When you have this amount of mistakes in the AFC Champions League, you will definitely lose.

"We knew we had a tough match, and we had planned to manage and control the game in the first hour and play to win in the last 30 minutes. But with such huge and abundant mistakes you can not expect to win.

"When a team concedes two goals in the first half, it will have a bad effect on their spirit and the chance of winning becomes nothing."

The Turk added he felt they "gifted" Al Ittihad their passage into the quarter-finals.

"Al Ittihad was better than us and indeed we helped them qualify to the next round. It was our gift to them," he said.

"It is normal to lose with this score, when you concede seven balls out of every 10 to your opposition. We had more mistakes than before in away matches."

He added: "The spirit of the players is low, and all I can do now is to congratulate the opponent."

Al Ittihad boss Raul Caneda said despite the scoreline, it wasn't an easy contest to prevail in.

"Despite the good result that we had, it was not an easy match for us,” the Spaniard said.

“We played well in the first half and we took a two-goal lead at half-time before we secured the win late in the second half.

"I want to congratulate the players who performed well tonight. They showed what they are capable of in front of a big crowd who played an essential part in our win today."