Awal troubled in Asian Champions League

Mohamed Awal played the full 90 minutes as Al Shabab went down 3-0 at home to Naft Tehran in the AFC Champions League.

The loss puts the Saudi giants on the brink of elimination from Asia’s premier continental club competition.

With four matches played, they are yet to win a match and have only accrued two points—following two draws and two defeats—and sit bottom of Group B.

They will surely have been hoping to pick up their first victory at home to Naft Tehran, who had only won one match before this one, but crumbled in the second half. The result puts the Iranians top of the group, one point ahead of Asamoah Gyan’s Al-Ain, while Al Shabab sit in fourth, three points behind Pakhtakor.

Al Shabab would almost certainly need to win their final two matches and hope that results go their way in order to sneak into the next round in one of the two qualifying spots.

Awal and co. held out for over an hour against the visitors on Tuesday evening, and indeed had chances to take the lead themselves, before Vahid Amiri opened the scoring on 57 minutes.

Al Shabab pushed for an equaliser, but ended up capitulating in the final ten minutes as Amir Arsalan Motahari and Reza Aliari Galoujeh rounded off a convincing 3-0 triumph.

Awal, wearing the number 23 shirt, played the full 90 minutes, while fellow Ghanaian John Antwi featured for the final half an hour.

Awal previously featured for the likes of ASEC Mimosas, Asante Kotoko and Maritzburg United before switching to the Riyadh outfit earlier this year.