AFC/Doha
Lekhwiya coach Michael Laudrup was in a cautious frame of mind despite seeing his side hand Bunyodkor a 1-0 defeat in the AFC Champions League on Wednesday to move into second place in Group A.
Vladimir Weiss scored the only goal of the game with a fine individual effort in the 43rd minute to take Lekhwiya up to second in the group behind Iran’s Persepolis while Bunyodkor languish at the bottom without a win from their four games so far.
Lekhwiya are now two points behind the Iranians and two clear of third-placed Al Nassr from Saudi Arabia, but the former Denmark international refused to relax as the battle for a place in the Round of 16 heats up.
“I’m happy to win against Bunyodkor again and we should have got a bigger victory but we didn’t take advantage of our dominance in the match,” said Laudrup. “We had a great performance but we missed the last touch.
“The win will give us a big push as we are now in second place in the group. However, things are not determined yet as all the teams in the group still have a chance to advance to the knockout stage and we should put more effort to achieve our target.”
Bunyodkor’s hopes of reaching the knockout rounds of the competition took another hit with the defeat—their third in four games—and coach Sergey Lushcan was left ruing his team’s misfortune.
“We lost tonight because of slight mistakes that we made as we conceded a goal from one of these mistakes,” he said. “We should have got a better result but Lekhwiya deserved to win as they were the better side in the match.
“The match was good from the two sides as they both were looking to win. We tried our best to score after we conceded the goal but we were not lucky and hopefully we can comeback in the last two matches.”
Meanwhile, Lokomotiv coach Vadim Abramov has already consigned his side’s impressive 5-0 win over Al Sadd of Qatar on Wednesday night to the record books as he looks ahead to his club’s continuing attempt to qualify for the knockout phase of the AFC Champions League.
The win was revenge for Lokomotiv’s 6-2 defeat at the hands of the Qatar Stars League side in Group C last month, with two goals from Marat Bikmaev and solitary strikes from Sanjar Shaakhmedov, Damir Kojasevic and Ruslan Korian securing all three points for the Uzbeks.
“It’s good to win 5-0, but it is history already,” said the former Uzbekistan coach . “If we lose in the next match everyone will forget today’s result. If it was in the knockout stage I would be happy because if we win 5-0 then we win on aggregate. But the last two rounds will be very tough.”
Abramov was particularly pleased with his team’s performance after their capitulation on the previous occasion the sides met, with the three points ensuring Lokomotiv remain in contention for the place in the next phase of the competition.
“We wanted to show our loss in Doha was a one-off. The players had a lot of motivation and they played very well, but it gave us just three points, nothing more,” he said. “Our target is to qualify for the Round of 16. We should be ready for the next important matches.”
Al Sadd coach Houssain Ammouta tried to be as upbeat as possible after the loss, with his team still in contention for a place in the Round of 16 with two matches remaining in the group stage.
“We lost the match, but I can’t say we played particularly badly tonight,” he said. “Lokomotiv benefited from our mistakes. We conceded two early goals and we made mistakes in those moments ourselves. Then we created some good chances but our strikers couldn’t take them.
“Our opponents had a lot of space in the second half and they scored goals. Lokomotiv were more aggressive and they have a lot of motivation. They also played well in defence.
“We had some problems in our squad and they caused serious mistakes. We have seven points already and we should concentrate now. We have to try to beat Foolad in our next match because we still have a good chance to qualify for the next stage.
“We started the game only looking for the win, but the two early goals affected us badly. I think Lokomotiv wanted the result more than us. It’s always difficult to come back after these kind of goals.”
Michael Laudrup
