Safa 1-0 Al Tilal

Al Tilal defender Omar Abdullah turned a cross by Mahmoud El Zoughbi into his own net after 10 minutes to settle the encounter at the Saida Municipal Stadium.

The result kept Safa level on nine points with Iraq's Al Zawra'a, who edged group leaders Al Shorta of Syria 2-1 earlier in the day.

El Zoughbi created the goal by beating two Al Tilal defenders on the left before cutting the ball back from the byline. His effort went across the face of goal and struck the unfortunate Abdullah before nestling into the back of the net.

Safa controlled the contest and could have extended their lead just after the hour when El Zoughbi received the ball in the Al Tilal box with his back to the goal. He made a quick turn and fired his effort towards the goal only to see it come back off the right post.

Safa assistant coach Ghassan Abou Diab admitted that it had been tough to get the points against Al Tilal despite the Yemeni side suffering their fifth consecutive loss in the group.

"Our focus is mainly in our league but we'll carry on playing in the same manner as our last match," he said.

"We faced a young team today and they played with a defensive formation which made things hard for us. The young Yemeni players put in strong performances and that caused a lot of problems for us as we could only score one goal.

"But at the end of the day, the three points are important and it will help us in our target to advance to the next round."

Al Tilal coach Noradin Abdulghani felt that his team's lack of experience and a target man proved to be their undoing.

"We went into the game with a defensive formation because we have young team and we don't have experienced players. That's why we were forced to play with such tactics tonight," he said.

"We had some chances to score but we lacked a good striker up front who can take advantage of the quick counter attacks that we tried to play."