Bengaluru: An away goal against JSW Bengaluru will be enough for FC Istiklol to reach the 2017 AFC Cup final, according to their captain Fatkhullo Fatkhuloev, whose team travel to southern India on Wednesday holding a 1-0 lead from the first leg of the Inter-Zone Final.
Fatkhuloev’s inch-perfect cross was headed home by Dmitri Barkov for the only goal of the game in Dushanbe three weeks ago and the unbeaten Tajik side are now only one game away from a second final in three years after finishing as runners-up to Malaysia’s Johor Darul Ta’zim in 2015.
But standing in their way is a Bengaluru team who are also aiming to make amends for a final defeat and the 2016 runners-up have won all four of their games at Sree Kanteerava Stadium ahead of the tightly poised tie.
“The whole team understand how big the game is so we will give it everything on the pitch tomorrow,” said Fatkhuloev.
“We have thought about the possibility of [heavy] rain but I hope it will not happen so it can be a better game as when it’s wet. it’s difficult to play.
“If we can score once, I don’t think they will score three, so the away goal would be very important.”
Fatkhuloev joined Istiklol in 2008 ahead of their debut season in the Tajik top flight and the midfielder has gone on to win five league titles in the past seven years.
Indeed, as Istiklol have acquired much of the best talent in the Central Asian country, the club have gone on to also establish themselves on the continent.
Their debut AFC Cup campaign, in 2015, proved a huge success as the Tajik team advanced all the way to the final, before suffering a 1-0 defeat to Johor in front of home support in Dushanbe.
But reaching the latter stages of the competition once more has proven two years ago was no fluke, and Istiklol now stand on the verge of repeating their feat should they avoid defeat in India.
“We often think about the 2015 final, what we did wrong and how we didn’t manage to win the title,” added Fatkhuloev.
“The biggest problem was not the mistakes we made, but we had played many games for Istiklol and the national team so I think we were a little bit tired and in the end we couldn’t do it.
“But the main competition for us is the AFC Cup because the level is much higher than in our country, so most of our experience we get from this competition and this is how the team develops.
“We always compete in the AFC Cup and these international games help us.”
Photos: Lagardère Sports
Source: the-afc.com