At Za’abeel Stadium, and in the first-round matches of Group One in the AFC Champions League 2, Al Wasl defeated its guest Esteghlal Tehran by seven goals to one.
Al Wasl entered the match with the following lineup: Khaled Al-Sanani in goalkeeping, and in front of him the defensive quartet consisting of Soufiane Bouftini, Adryelson Silva, Hugo Neto, and Pedro Malheiro; and in midfield Renato Tapia, Nicolas Gimenez, Fabio Lima, Ali Saleh, and Serginho, while Matheus Saldahna took charge of leading the attack line.
Al Wasl began the match with early pressure seeking to open the scoring, and managed to do so quickly through Fabio Lima who scored the lead goal in the seventh minute with a wonderful left-footed shot from outside the penalty area after Ali Saleh’s ball rebounded from Esteghlal’s defense. And only five minutes passed until Nicolas Gimenez added the second goal, after he followed a cross from Serginho that the defense cleared to reach him, so he shot it directly with his left foot into the net.
Head coach Luis Castro made a forced substitution, represented by the exit of Matías Saldana due to injury, and the entry of Renato Junior in his place.
The brilliance of Serginho continued, and he created the third goal for Pedro Malheiro in the forty-first minute with an accurate long pass that penetrated Esteghlal’s defense and reached Malheiro, who placed it into the net.
Roozbeh Cheshmi scored a goal for Esteghlal in the forty-fifth minute.
Head coach Luis Castro made substitutions, as Abdelrahman Saleh and Adama Diallo entered as substitutes for Hugo Neto and Serginho, and Ali Saleh and Nicolas Gimenez went out, for Siaka Sidibe and Tahnoon Al-Zaabi to enter instead of them.
Renato Júnior was subjected to a foul by the goalkeeper of Esteghlal’s team, so Al Wasl obtained a penalty kick that Fabio Lima successfully executed in the fifty-seventh minute, scoring his second personal goal and the fourth for Al Wasl.
Renato Júnior scored the fifth goal for Al Wasl in the seventy-first minute, after a fast run by Ali Saleh from the right side of Esteghlal’s penalty area, and a cross ball like a plate of gold that Júnior followed to place into the net.
Al Wasl continued in attempts of scoring, and Soufiane Bouftini scored the sixth goal for Al Wasl with a header in the eighty-fifth minute after following a free kick indirect inside Esteghlal’s penalty area played by Fabio Lima, and Renato Júnior sealed the Wasl seven in the ninety-first minute.
The match ended with Al Wasl winning by seven goals to one, thus topping the ranking of its group.