On Wednesday, Tractorsazi FC, led by ‘general’ Amir Qale’ Noei hosted the guests of Al-Jazeera FC during the Group C matches of the first week. Tractorsazi find the goal relatively early in the match when Bakhtiar Rahmani received the ball after some maneuvering of the home team and scored with a precise shot to the Al-Jazeera goal. The second shock came rather unexpectedly to the guest when only in 11th minute of the match Shoja’ Khalilzadeh doubled the hosting player’s advantage by a header from a corner kick-out. This was a blow to the guests who, playing away in Tabriz, failed to successfully deploy the players on the ground.
Al-Jazeera organized extensive attacks to compensate the score, providing the time for Tractorsazi to exploit the counterattack found occasionally and came rather threateningly. In 27th minute of the first half, Mohammadreza Akhbari displayed adeptness in neutralizing some formidable attacks by Al-Jazeera to keep the goal closed to the guests.
Tractorsazi went to the halftime break with superiority. In 52nd minute of the match, Al-Jazeera scored, but the assistant referee flagged it as scored in an offside position. Tractorsazi marched again to find more net positions, and actually scored a third when Mehdi Sharifi in 54th minute waged a laudable attempt to cross the ball from the line. Minute before, Sharifi was very close to score, but Al-Jazeera defenders returned back the ball to save their side.
The fourth goal came in 60th minute, this time again by Bakhtiar Rahmani, who punished the defender with stealing the ball and find the goalkeeper in a single position. Two minutes later, he managed to control well, but failed to score the fifth terminator. Al-Jazeera players reclaimed the field to mount a series of attacks to find at least solace in single goal. However, the host was resistant and did not allowed scoring by Al-Jazeera. In the final minutes of the match, Sharifi again missed an ideal position to convert the opportunity to full goal.
Tractorsazi now rules the roost in Group C where Uzbekistan’s Pakhtakor only managed to equalize against Saudi Arabian Al-Helal FC 2-2 in Tashkent. Tractorsazi’s win marked the brilliant results of FC Sepahan and FC Zobahan, both from Isfahan.
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