Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Doha: Mahdi Rajabzadeh’s rapid fire strike in the opening minute of the second half was enough to ensure Zobahan started their 2016 AFC Champions League campaign with a 1-0 win over Qatar Stars League champions Lekhwiya on Tuesday.
Rajabzadeh scored with less than a minute on the second-half clock to give Yahya Golmohammadi’s side all three points in the teams’ opening Group B clash at Abdulla Bin Khalifa Stadium.
“This was the best possible start that we could think of because winning against Lekhwiya is not easy and I’m happy with the performance of the players,” said Zobahan coach Golmohammadi. “We tried our best to avoid conceding goals and we successfully performed our strategy.
“We aimed to score in the second period and we achieved this as the concentration of our players was very high. Winning this away match will give us a big push and hopefully we can maintain this advantage in the next match.”
Lekhwiya had started brightly and, within the opening three minutes, Djamal Belmadi’s side could have taken the lead, only for Zobahan goalkeeper Mohammad Rashid Mazaheri to drop quickly to the left to push Alain Dioko’s low shot away from goal before Walid Ismail hacked the ball to safety.
At the other end, Morteza Tabrezi threatened when he burst down the right before sending in a low cross that forced Lekhwiya goalkeeper Amine Lecomte to drop low to collect, but it was the Qataris who looked the more likely to score in the opening 45 minutes.
With 32 minutes on the clock, Ismail Mohamad produced the most spectacular effort of the half when he sent his right foot shot just over the bar from well outside the penalty area, and just minutes later he went close again, this time finding the side netting with a scissor kick six yards out.
But, after a disappointing opening 45 minutes, Zobahan came out firing on all cylinders at the start of the second half and with little more than 30 seconds on the clock the Iranians had taken the lead.
The goal-scoring move from Golmohammadi’s side started on the edge of their own penalty area after the Qataris gave away possession cheaply and within seconds Tabrezi was slotting the ball into the path of Rajabzadeh, who scored from an acute angle.
Zobahan could have gone two goals up on the hour mark, only for Mahdi Mahdipour’s shot from outside the penalty area to sear just wide of Lecomte’s right post as the Iranians continued to maintain the pressure.
Five minutes later they went closer still, only this time Kaveh Rezaei’s well-struck free kick from 25 yards out clipped the top of the crossbar after beating Lecomte for pace.
Lekhwiya grew increasingly desperate as the game wore on, but Zobahan held on to deservedly take all three points.
“The defeat is bad for us, especially because it is at the start of the competition,” said Lekhwiya coach Belmadi. “We should have played with a balanced performance because our opponents had good physical abilities and they didn’t give us a lot of space to use.
“We played better in the first half and we tried our best to level the scores in the second period but we were not lucky. We need to forget this match now and try our best to recover and avoid losing any more points in the remaining matches.”
Photo: AFP