Bonacic: We can improve

AFCCL - Sepahan manager Luka Bonacic insists there is still more to come from his side despite the fact they got their AFC Champions League campaign off to the ideal start by defeating Al Ittihad 2-1 at Foolad Shahr stadium on Wednesday.

Al Ittihad broke the deadlock in the 12th minute through striker Anas Sari but two goals in 10 minutes from Salehi - in the 19th and 29th – gave the Iranian side a perfect start to life in Group D.

“We are naturally delighted with the victory,” said Bonacic. “Since it was our opening game in this year’s ACL campaign, we focused all our attention on getting that win.

“However, I do not believe we performed to the best of our ability and I believe we can play much better.

“I promise that we will perform much better in our next game.

“I’m not happy that we decided to sit back in the second half but fortunately Al Ittihad failed to take advantage of this.

“I watched a number of videos of Al Ittihad and actually expected them to be more offensive.”

Al Ittihad manager Husain Afash also promised a dramatic improvement in performance on the pitch to ensure progress from the group stage of the competition.

He said: “The first clash of a tournament, especially one on the continental stage, is always difficult.

“We will certainly play much better in our next game to ensure we go through to the knock-out phase.

“Although we respect the Sepahan squad, their players and coaching staff, they lacked any good team tactics.

“However we struggled to cope with their swift attacks and counter-attacks throughout the game.

“We faced a tricky situation before we flew out to Iran, as we did not know where we were supposed to be playing against Sepahan, in Tehran or in Esfahan.”