TEHRAN - Iranian football expert, Jalal Cheraghpour, hailed Foolad for their performance against Al Hilal in the quarterfinals of the AFC Champions League.

Titleholders Al Hilal advanced to the semifinals of the Asian Champions League with a 1-0 win over the Iranian club Thursday night.

Al-Hilal had a tough job in the game against a resilient Foolad squad and needed a goal from Moussa Marega three minutes from time to defeat the Ahvaz-based team.

“Before talking about the game, we should consider some important issues to compare Foolad and Al Hilal conditions,” said Cheraghpour in his exclusive interview with Tehran Times.

“With a border vision on the facilities and infrastructures of two country’s football, whose representative are Foolad and Al Hilal, you can define your expectation from the both teams.

“The quality of the two leagues, the stadiums in both countries, the quality and the price of the players who play in the leagues and in particular the players of Foolad and Al Hila; the huge difference between the two teams in the aforementioned issues speaks for itself.

“In such a condition, Foolad did a great job against Al Hilal and deserve respect and compliments for their performance.

“Their tactical strategy was ‘sit back and counter attack’ and the Foolad players were successful in accomplishing the tactical issues. If Foolad were a little lucky, they even had the chance to score and win the match against the best Asian football club,” added the Iranian top expert.

Foolad player Roberto Torres’s excellent delivery into the box was headed just over the crossbar by Hamid Bou Hamdan, then Ehsan Pahlavan forced a fine save from Abdullah Al Mayouf after firing in from a narrow angle, while the Al Hilal goalkeeper had to recover and make a second excellent save after initially dropping the ball into the path of Torres.

Cheraghpour also talked about Javad Nekounam’s resignation two days before the match against Al Hilal. Foolad’s former head coach was replaced by Hamidreza Rajabi.

“It was Unprofessional. It was not a correct decision both morally and professionally. As a coach who has led a team for two or three times, you are not expected to leave your team on the eve of a big and important match,” Cheraghpour concluded.