Nikolic: Our mastery was undeniable

Afcchampionsleague - Foolad coach Nenad Nikolic heaped praise on his team after watching them demolish Kuwait’s Al Qadisiya 6-0 in their opening AFC Champions League clash on Wednesday evening.

First half goals from Ashgar Rameshgar, Meysam Soleimani and Ali Badavi gave Foolad a three-goal cushion at the break and Mojahed Khaziravi, Nadir Ahmadi and Pejman Montazeri completed the rout in the second 45 minutes.

The win came less than a week after the club suffered a 7-1 loss to Pas in the Iranian league and Nikolic was delighted with the performance.

“As you saw, we controlled the match and our mastery was undeniable during the whole 90 minutes,” said the Croatian coach.

“I hadn’t ever heard of any Iranian team winning against a Kuwaiti side with such a shining result.

“Of course this is football, one day you are lucky and poised for the clash, another day you may fail to score in an empty goal. Unlike the Kuwaitis, Wednesday was a good day for us, but they had their worst day and left with the blues.”

The result was a major turnaround, too, for Al Qadisiya, who went into the game off the back of an astounding 12-0 win over Al Shabab in the Kuwaiti league. The defeat so incensed coach Mohammed Ibrahim he refused to attend the press conference.

“The conditions of this match were thoroughly different from our Iranian Premier League match last week clash against Pas,” said Nikolic.

“I exerted some changes in my squad and you saw the positive effects of my thoughts.

“I don’t think that we are much stronger than them. They have got 10 victories and two draws in their recent 12 matches of Kuwait football league. They won their last match with a unique result; scoring 12 times without conceding any.”