Soccer-Al Hilal beat Al Ain to put one foot in ACL final

Reuters

RIYADH, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Al Hilal coach Laurentiu Reghecampf has warned his players not to get ahead of themselves after they put one foot in the Asian Champions League final with a 3-0 victory over Al Ain in Riyadh on Tuesday. Three goals in a nine-minute second half spell gave the Saudis a comfortable buffer for the second leg of the semi-final at the home of the 11-times United Arab Emirates champions on Sept 30. Nassir Al Shamran opened the scoring in front of 57,170 fans at King Fahd Stadium with a thunderbolt of a shot from a narrow angle in the 61st minute, adding his second three minutes later from close range. Al Ain's misery deepened soon afterwards when their goalkeeper Khalid Eisa was shown a straight red card for scything down Nawaf Al Abid, only for substitute Dawoud Sulaiman to save the resultant spot kick. Former Brazil international midfielder Thiago Neves made amends for his miss within a minute, though, calmly side-footing the ball into the net from 12 metres out for Al Hilal's third. "We are happy with the result as we scored three goals but this doesn't mean that we are in the final," Romanian Reghecampf told the tournament's official website. "In football a lot of things happen and hopefully we can repeat the good performance that we had tonight in the second leg. "We should celebrate tonight but as of tomorrow we should prepare for the future and hopefully we can achieve another good result in the next match." An impressive display from Al Hilal's miserly defence ensured a clean sheet for an eighth successive match in the tournament and restricted the previously prolific visitors to just one shot on target, from Ghanaian striker Asamaoh Gyan. "The first goal blasted the confidence of our players and this led to two more goals and this big result," said Al Ain's Croatian coach Zlatko Dalic. "I know that the defeat is heavy but we will try our best in order to level things in the second leg." The winners of the tie will play South Korea's FC Seoul or Australian club Western Sydney Wanderers, who play the first leg of their last four clash on Wednesday, in a two-legged final in October. (Writing by Nick Mulvenney in Sydney, editing by Greg Stutchbury)