“When the goal comes in the 85th minute, then it’s code red and you just have to defend those last 10 minutes and the guys did a tremendous job," said Rankovic.

“I said yesterday that I was still waiting for somebody to wake me up. But, now, honestly, I don’t want to be awake. I want to keep dreaming and let’s hope we can go all the way.

“We knew that we were going to suffer a lot of pressure and we had to put a lot of bodies in front of the goal, and we did a good job.”

While the Sailors can look forward to a final against UAE's Sharjah FC on May 18, it was heartbreak for Sydney with scorer Lolley cutting a forlorn figure.

“I just thought we were going to do it. We gave our all, we could’ve scored more, we should’ve scored more. I’m just devastated,” Lolley said.

“(It was) fine margins. At their place, they had a couple of chances and scored some great goals, and we had so many chances (but) the ball didn’t seem to go in for us. On another day we could win that game four or five-nil and it’s comfortable. But we just couldn’t get over the line, in the end."