Bonacic remains confident

AFCCL – Sepahan coach Luka Bonacic remains confident of his side’s chances of winning the AFC Champions League, despite seeing them held to a 1-1 draw by Urawa Reds at Foolad Shahr Stadium in the first leg of the final on Wednesday.

Urawa took the lead through Robson Ponte just before half-time only for Sepahan to hit back immediately with a Mahmoud Karimi equaliser less than 60 seconds after the restart.

The Japanese side have the advantage of an away goal in hand for the return match in Saitama next week, but on the basis of Sepahan’s performance in the first leg, the Croatian genuinely believes that they can turn things around in Japan.

“I think we always have hope. Urawa are a strong team but tonight’s game showed me that we have a chance and we are determined to get a result in Tokyo,” said Bonacic.

“We tried to give our best but the match finished 1-1.

“But tomorrow is a new day and a new match and this final is 180 minutes. The first 90 is finished and now, we are just waiting for the final 90 minutes.”

Reds had the better of the first half but a change of personnel at half-time turned the match in the home side’s favour after the break.

“In the first half, we played 4-4-2 but we had a problem on the wings and we conceded that goal right before half time.

“But in the second half, we changed our system and I thought that we were the better team. The result was 1-1 but that’s football and now the game is finished. I thought we had luck on our side before this game but tonight, the luck went against us.

“We didn’t create a lot of scoring chances but Urawa are not a village team. They are strong but we didn’t let them create many chances as well.”

After their fairly fortuitous quarter-final victory against Kawasaki Frontale, Bonacic had memorably compared his side to a sluggish Peykan competing against a Kawasaki but he felt better about his side’s ability to match the Mitsubishi-owned Urawa Reds.

“I wasn’t sure how we would play against Urawa after our experience of playing against Kawasaki but after tonight, I’m feeling quite good about our chances.

“I think we managed to put a bit of sugar into their Mitsubishi engine,” he cheekily added.