TEHRAN – Sepahan football team lost to Al Hilal 3-1 in the return leg of the 2023/24 AFC Champions League Round of 16 Thursday night.

Farshad Ahmadzadeh gave the visiting team the lead in the 54th minute in Riyadh’s Kingdom Arena but the Iranian team were reduced to 10-man in the 71st minute after Siavash Yazdani was shown a red card.

Five minutes later, Salem Aldawsari leveled the score and Ruben Neves made it 2-1 in the 82nd minute. Aleksandar Mitrović scored the third goal in the dying moments of the match.

Sepahan had lost to Al Hilal 3-1 last week in the first leg in Isfahan.

The next step in Al Hilal’s march will be a quarter-finals tie against their fierce local rivals Al Ittihad, while the other West quarter-final sees Al Nassr face UAE’s Al Ain.