AFC Champions League Elite:
Tractor to face uphill test in last 16
Persian Gulf Pro League champion Tractor FC will face a daunting task when it resumes AFC Champions League Elite action against Emirati club Shabab Al Ahli in Jeddah on Tuesday.
The last-16 game at the Prince Abdullah Al Faisal Sports City will end weeks of speculation and uncertainty swirling around the Iranian top-flight side’s future in the continent’s elite club competition.
In late March, Iran’s Sports Ministry prohibited the country’s national and club teams from visiting “hostile countries, where the security of Iranian athletes cannot be guaranteed,” amid a regional military conflict between Iran and a U.S.-Israeli coalition.
However, Tractor was later given the green light to travel to Jeddah after a two-week ceasefire went into effect in the early hours of last Wednesday.
Tractor has still endured a hampered preparation ahead of the knockout-stage clash.
The Iranian side left the country by road on Saturday, having trained for two days in Iran with just 13 players, as the team’s foreign recruits – along with Iranian internationals Amirhossein Hosseinzadeh and Shoja Khalilzadeh – were not present in Iran.
The team arrived in Turkey on Saturday night before flying to Jeddah on Sunday.
Ultimately, Tractor is set to hold a light, low-intensity training session today to prepare for Tuesday’s match. While Tractor has been out of action for over 40 days, Shabab Al Ahli, in contrast, has played several competitive matches during this period and is fully match-fit for the game, which will be a rematch of the 1-1 draw on the opening day of the league phase last September in Dubai.
Tractor has also lacked proper group training sessions, and the absence of foreign players from those sessions has made head coach Mohammad Rabiei’s job even harder.
However, the good news for the Iranian coach was that integral foreigners Regi Lushkja, Aleksandar Sedlar, Tibor Halilović, Odildzhon Khamrobekov, Tomislav Štrkalj, and Swedish goalkeeper Marko Johansson joined the Tractor camp in Turkey on Saturday and will be available to feature on Tuesday.
Tractor won five and lost one of eight games in the West zone’s league stage, finishing third in the 12-team table with 17 points, while the Emirati champion stood sixth with 11 points.
Elsewhere in the rescheduled last-16 round, in a Saudi-Qatari double-header, Riyadh-based heavyweight Al Hilal will take on Al Sadd on Monday, with Al Ahli Saudi and Al Duhail squaring off earlier in the day.
Saudi Pro League champion Al Ittihad and the UAE’s Al Wahda go head-to-head on Tuesday.