Lee looking to leave Al Ain on an AFC Champions League high

Published on: 10 September 2016

Tashkent: Lee Myung-joo is hoping he can sign off from life in the United Arab Emirates with an AFC Champions League winners medal in his pocket as Al Ain prepare to take on Uzbekistan’s Lokomotiv Tashkent in the second leg of their quarter-final meeting next week.

The two teams meet in Tashkent on Tuesday after playing out a goalless draw in Al Ain in late August and this year’s AFC Champions League will be the last of Lee’s three-year contract with the UAE club.

And the 26-year-old (pictured, centre) is confident he and his team mates can improve on their recent performances in the competition and claim a second continental title to add to the one won in the tournament’s inaugural season in 2003.

“It’s not going to be easy but Al Ain reached the semi-finals when we were in the same situation, so we know what to do,” says Lee, who joined the former AFC Champions League winners from Korea Republic’s Pohang Steelers. 

“We have won in the quarter-finals before. It will be difficult but we have prepared well and we can go through.

“This team isn’t a young team. There are a lot of players from the national team and they have experience at international level and in the AFC Champions League and in the league. They have grown a lot and this is the right time and the right generation to win the AFC Champions League.”

Lee was part of the Al Ain team that was eliminated in the semi-finals by Saudi Arabia’s Al Hilal in 2014, his first season at the club, and this year’s campaign will likely be his last before returning to Korea to complete his compulsory military service.

Over the last three seasons, Al Ain have grown to become one of the region’s leading teams although last year was disappointing by their own high standards, when they were eliminated in the AFC Champions League in the Round of 16 by bitter domestic rivals Al Ahli.

Al Ain also relinquished their national title to Al Ahli at the end of the UAE’s domestic season in May, but Lee believes the changes that have been made to the squad since – including the arrival of UAE international Amer Abdulrahman from Baniyas – have made the team stronger.

“We had a difficult time last season because in the middle of the year a few of our foreign players left,” he says. “We changed three of our foreign players, but we know each other now and we play like a team. We are compact and work well together. The coach is the same and we can get through those moments.

“For the way we play, we need someone who can pass in the middle so Amer is perfect for that position. He plays at international level and he will give us a positive impact on tactics and possession and the like.”

Photo: Lagardère Sports

Source: the-afc.com

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