Kashima Antlers Went to Semifinal of Asian Champions League

DBasia.news – Japanese club Kashima Antler in the semifinal round of Asian Champions League for the first time after defeating Chinese representative Tianjin Quanjian with a 3-0 score in the second match of the quarter-final at Macau Olympic Complex Stadium, Tuesday.

By this winning, Antlers won 3-0 aggregate after the previous 2-0 victory in the first leg.

In the semifinal, they will play against one of the South Korean teams, either Suwon Bluewings or Jeonbuk Motors. Both teams will meet in the second quarter-final match at Suwon, Wednesday. The host have 3-0 aggregate winning from the first match.

Serginho started the dominance of Antlers in that match by his headbutt when the match just went 13′ before Hiroki Abe came and doubled the goal 14 minutes later.

Antlers emphasized their domination when Shoma Doi scored his goal by his curve kick at 66′, ensuring the victory for Go Oiqa squad.

“We are happy to qualify the semifinal round of Asian Champions League but our ambitions won’t stop here,” Oiwa said.

“The results will come as we play, thus we have to concentrate in every match.”

“In the first match, Tianjin played aggressively and we got overwhelmed but we handled the match well. We scored the important first goal and the second goal not too long after.”

“For 90 minutes, we played as prepared and I praised the players for doing it.”

In the other matches, Persepolis (Iran) defeated Al Duhail (Qatar) to the second semifinal in two consecutive times. They will meet another Qatar club, Al Sadd, who got the semifinal ticket after defeating Iranian club Estghlal.

 

Tianjin Quanjian

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Left 0-1 from the first leg against Al Duhail who won 9 matches of Asian Champions League this season, Branko Ivankovic squad got left behind when Karim Boudiaf scored the goal for Doha club at Azadi Stadium.

But the former Iran international defender Jalal Hosseini triggered the defeat when he scored one goal for Persepolis, where Sultan Al Brake’s own goal balanced the aggregate situation two minutes before Godwin Mensha scored the goal and brought Persepolis won 3-2 aggregate.

Esteghlal failed to achieve the “All Iran” semifinal round when they got eliminated from the competition by Al Sadd who led by Xavi Hernandez, who got 3-1 dominance from the first leg.

Akram Afif strengthened the dominance of the team. Even though goals from Rouhollah Bagheri and Morteza Tabrizi gave an expectation to Esteghlal, Baghdad Bounedjah goal before the match ended locked the draw 2-2 result that night, ensuring Al Sadd to win aggregate with a 5-3 score.