"First, we congratulate Al Wehdat for qualifying alongside Sharjah, as the two qualification tickets went to those who deserved them in the end,” said Olaroiu.

"The pitch was an obstacle for us and greatly limited our capabilities, but despite that, we succeeded in achieving what was needed by winning and seizing the lead and obtaining the first qualification place in the group.

"We eagerly await who our next opponents are but we look to go far in the competition, noting that our challenges in the next stage will be different from the previous.”

Caio Lucas gave Sharjah the lead in the 31st minute but Al Wehdat drew level seven minutes later through Daniel Afaneh before a second half brace from Luanzinho handed the Emirati side victory.

Having gone into the match as group leaders, it was a bitter end for Al Wehdat with assistant head coach Fadi Abulatifa rueing the absence of key players.

"We apologise to our fans who supported us as we did not achieve what they wanted us to achieve. I believe that the absence of six players is an influential matter for any team,” said Abulatifa.

"We played today in a different way than before, and we attacked and had a number of opportunities that we did not use in the best way, and we need to address the mistakes before entering the second round.

"Today's loss revealed many weaknesses to us, and our mission will be to work on avoiding them so that we are at full strength in the second round.”