AFC - Goals in the second half from Jlloyd Samuel and Farhad Majidi gave Esteghlal a 2-0 win over Al Ain of the United Arab Emirates at the Azadi Stadium on Wednesday as the Iranian side recorded their first victory in Group D of this year’s AFC Champions League.

Despite a bright opening 10 minutes for the visitors, a game that intrigued more than it excited ended scoreless at half time, with Esteghlal’s Mojtaba Jabbari coming closest to scoring when his powerful shot was turned behind by goalkeeper Dawoud Suleiman.

The other moment of significance in the first half turned out to be the introduction off the bench of the veteran Majidi in an effort to give the hosts more firepower.
Al Ain’s Romanian midfielder Mirel Radoi shot just over the bar three minutes into the second half and Majidi saw his shot turned around the post 10 minutes later.

But four minutes after the hour mark, Trinidad and Tobago international Samuel ghosted in between two defenders to head home Ali Hamoudi’s cross from the right and give Esteghlal the lead.

Majidi, who played for Al Ain when they won the inaugural AFC Champions League in 2003, then sealed the win nine minutes later after beating the offside trap and getting to the ball before a hesitant Dawoud to slot a right foot shot into the net.

The Emirati league leaders’ bad night in Tehran’s Azadi Stadium was compounded when star playmaker Omer Abdulrahman was helped off with what looked like an injury to his left knee.

They came close to scoring in the dying moments with a couple of one-on-one chances but Esteghlal held on to move above Al Ain in the group and onto four points.

“I’m happy and thank God that after such a difficult (league) game with Tractorsazi, we were able to win this one,” said the Esteghlal coach Amir Ghalenoei.

“You could see how tired the players were in the first half. Al Ain are a good team and we aimed to close off the supply between their midfield and forwards, which meant that we achieved our first aim of not conceding.”

Ghalenoei’s counterpart, Romanian Cosmin Olaroiu had high praise for Al Ain’s conquerors.

“If Esteghlal play like this in the rest of their matches they will win the AFC Champions League,” he said.

“This is a difficult defeat. We played good football but Esteghlal played excellently and got the result.

“We played with quality and had good chances but Esteghlal scored their first goal which opened us up and that allowed them to score a second.”