ACL2020: Al Hilal's Gomis rues missed chances against Pakhtakor

Doha: Al Hilal SFC French forward Bafetimbi Gomis was disappointed after missing several scoring chances in his side’s goalless draw with Uzbekistan’s Pakhtakor in their 2020 AFC Champions League Group B tie on Thursday.

The 2019 AFC Champions League MVP and Top Scorer failed to find the net for the second consecutive match although the defending champions remained top of Group B despite Thursday's stalemate.

“I wanted to score because we were eager to win the match,” said Gomis. “The most important thing for us was to score goals but this is football.

“We performed well and we showed great fighting spirit, despite missing several key players. We showed that we can still play good football.”

Salem Al Dawsari, named Man of the Match for the second consecutive time against Pakhtakor, had reason to be happy despite the stalemate with the Uzbeks.

“Yesterday I had a newborn and I’m happy that he’s doing well along with my wife,” said Al Dawsari with a smile on his face after the match.

“We ran the game just as we wanted and we had great concentration until the last minutes,” he said. “We tried to score but the most important thing was to avoid conceding any goals and we managed to do this.

“We are the champions of the competition and we are capable of getting past all the obstacles,” said the 29-year-old midfielder. “It is true that we are missing several key players but this will not affect us because we are a winning team.”