Jasur Hasanov and Timur Kapadze scored in the second half as Kuruvchi successfully followed up their 2-0 victory over last year’s runners-up Sepahan after suffering an opening day 1-0 defeat against Saudi Arabia’s Al Ittihad.

The victory at the Aleppo International Stadium saw Kasimov’s charges join the Jeddah side at the top of Group A at the midway point of the group stage with six points from three games.

"This victory wasn’t a gift. We had a lot of chances to score and we could have even have sealed the win early in the first half," said Kasimov.

"Mistakes are part of football and our team took advantage of Al Ittihad’s mistakes. We also missed a lot of chances that we should have scored from.

"Al Ittihad are a good team but they were missing two of their key players.

"They didn’t play well and hopefully we can repeat this win in our next game in Tashkent."

After suffering a second consecutive loss in the competition, Al Ittihad’s Romanian coach Tita Valeriu knows his side face a tough battle to reach the quarter-finals.
Hasanov found the breakthrough for Kuruvchi four minutes into the second half after taking advantage of a mistake by Omar Hamidi to fire a powerful shot past Al Ittihad custodian Mahmoud Karkar.

Kuruvchi doubled their advantage four minutes after the hour mark when Kapadze was the quickest to react after Victor Karpenko’s powerful shot was initially saved by Karkar.

"The first half was good and we could have scored more than one goal," said Valeriu.

"However, Omar Hemedi’s mistake was crucial and it was similar to the mistake he had against (Saudi Arabia’s) Al Ittihad.

"Giving away such mistakes can be lethal and most of our players are young and they lack experience.

“As for our attacking plan, we played with two clear strikers and two attacking midfielders and we couldn’t play with more than that.

"Our chances have been badly affected by this defeat and it will now be very hard for us to qualify from the group."