Ulsan Hyundai has won the Champions League in Asia for the second time since 2012. The South Korean soccer club won the final in Qatar on Saturday against the Iranian champions Persepolis Tehran 2-1 (1-1). The match winner for Ulsan was Brazilian Junior Negrao, who scored both goals (45th + 4 and 55th). Tehran took the lead through Mehdi Abdi (45th).
The Asian premier class came to an end after eleven months. Game operations were suspended between March and September due to the corona pandemic. A large number of the games were played in the country of the next World Cup host, Qatar. In the knockout round, only one game was played. Between September 26th and October 3rd, the finalist from West Asia was played. It wasn’t until December 6th until December 13th that the teams from East Asia had their turn.
Final round in Qatar
Persepolis got off to a poor start in the competition. From the first two encounters, the Iranians only took one point away. After the resumption of the competition in September, Persepolis won three of its remaining four matches on neutral ground and still made it into the knockout round as group winners.
In the round of 16, the Iranians won 1-0 in the West Asian group against the Qatari home team Al Sadd on September 27, and 3 days later they won 2-0 in the quarter-finals against Pakhtakor (Uzbekistan). In the semifinals, the team prevailed on October 3rd against the Saudi tournament favorites Al-Nassr. After a 1-1 draw after extra time, the Iranians finally won 5-3 on penalties.
After five wins and a draw with 14: 5 goals, Ulsan was the first in Group F to make it through to the round of 16, for which the East Asians traveled to Qatar at the end of November. There the Koreans retained the upper hand 3-0 against Australian representatives Melbourne Victory and a few days later they won 2-0 against Beijing Guoan (China) in the quarter-finals. It was not until the semifinals against Vissel Kobe’s Japanese team that it got tight, but after extra time Ulsan qualified 2-1 for the final.
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