"I congratulate my team and our fans for winning the match. We deserved the victory based on our performance. We had an important chance to score early on but didn’t capitalise on it,” said Milojevic. “After that, Al Gharafa controlled the first half and managed to open the scoring just before the break.

“In the second half, we played at a faster pace, and our level improved. We performed much better than in the first half, which led to the penalty that allowed us to equalise. After that, we scored a second goal to secure the win and earn three very important points."

Al Gharafa remained on three points and now face an uphill battle to qualify.

"We scored just before half-time and at the start of the second half, we put in a great effort and performed well. We had opportunities to score more goals, but we didn’t capitalise on them before Al Wasl were awarded the penalty,” said head coach Pedro Martins. 

“(After the penalty) They were the better team and eventually succeeded in scoring a second goal, which gave them the win over us.

“We can't blame bad luck, but the penalty kick did change the course of the match. Our aim was to win, but it didn’t happen. However, we are still in the competition, and we need to secure more points in the remaining matches."