Al Sadd needed extra time to defeat the Oceania champions 3-1 at Jassim bin Hamad Stadium and the former FC Barcelona midfielder believes that his side should have converted the chances they created throughout the 90 minutes.
“We were the better side in the match and created many scoring chances, and that is why I feel sorry that we needed to go through extra-time,” said Xavi in the post-match press conference.
“I believe we were lucky to score in extra time, otherwise we would have needed penalty shoot-outs,” he added. “After conceding the equaliser, the players were lost and they missed several chances.”
The Spain and Barcelona legend said he will be working on Al Sadd's mistakes when they play against Mexico’s FC Monterrey in the second round on Saturday.
“I know we can do better because our problem was mental and psychological,” explained Xavi. “We missed a lot of scoring chances and this is not normal and I was not satisfied to miss such chances.
“We have a big dream to go to the semi-final and we now have one match to play and achieve our dream,” he continued. “We must fix the mistakes that we made because we will definitely struggle if we play against Monterrey as we did today.”
Hienghène Sport head coach Félix Tagawa said small details made the difference against Al Sadd and that his side paid for their mistakes.
“We tried to rely on counter-attacks but our players were not close to each other in the final third.
“In general, we paid for the mistakes that we made which meant an early exit for us,” Tagawa said. “We should have played more aggressively but we were not lucky tonight.”
Photos: FIFA via Getty Images
