Third-place can't lift Pourheidari's blues

AsianFootball - Iranian champions Esteghlal took third place in the Asian Club Championship with an emphatic 5-2 win over Uzbekistan's Nasaf Karsi but despite the crushing defeat it was a hollow victory for head coach Mansour Pourheidari.

"I think that if it wasn't for the weather in the first game then we would be playing in the final today," said Pourheidari nursing a cold that caused his absence from the post match press conference following the 2-1 semi-final defeat by Anyang.

The 56-year-old, who was denied the chance of a third Asian Club Championship title with the Tehran giants after winning in 1970 as a player and 20 years later as a coach was left ruing the fact that defeat by the Koreans was due to factors beyond his control.

"Because of the result in the first match we didn't have that many spectators today but the result was because of the playing conditions brought on by the rain and hail and the weather is out of our hands, the hands of the local organising committee, and the hands of the AFC," he said.

Mohammad Navazi went part of the way towards easing his semi-final penalty miss with a first-half double and after scoring four goals that helped the Blues top the Quarter-Finals West table in Abu Dhabi, in-form Faraz Fatemi also added another to his personal Asian Club Championship tally.

Mahdi Pashazadeh also got in on the goal scoring act for Esteghlal although Nasaf striker Zafar Kholmurodov stole the limelight with an audacious flick that looped over the head of Esteghlal keeper Parviz Boroomand.