The result won them the tie on away goals following a 2-2 draw in the first leg in Pyongyang. They now face defending champions Air Force Club of Iraq – who are aiming for an unprecedented third successive title – in the final on October 27.
Wayward finishing, but Turkmens prevail
It was no great surprise that it took a penalty to send Altyn Asyr through to the final given their lack of accuracy.
Although the home side had twice as many scoring efforts as their opponents, they still had fewer on target, making for a shooting accuracy figure of 18.8 percent in comparison with the 62.5 percent achieved by 4.25.
Altyn Asyr were often forced into shooting from distance as they struggled to create in their opponents’ penalty area.
While the successful outcome means this doesn’t matter for now, they will certainly need to develop more of a cutting edge if they are to win the final later this month.
Hojayev keeps it simple
After surviving an early onslaught, Altyn Asyr needed a player to get hold of the ball and begin to dictate the tempo in order to bring his side back into the game.
Resul Hojayev tried to get his team on the front foot with his passing and a couple of fine long-range strikes that worried the 4.25 goalkeeper An Tae-song.
The graphic below shows Hojayev’s passing matrix, often keeping things short and simple in order to retain possession.
Hojayev’s two key passes (in yellow) indicated that he could be creative as well as play safe but there is no doubt that his game management helped his side through after a testing start.
4.25 fail to make most of strong start
The visitors looked very much like the home side in the opening stages of the match as they piled on the pressure in search of the goals that would give them control of the tie.
Han Song-hyok’s goal came after just seven minutes and was reward for their early dominance. The graphic below shows just how much control the away side had in the first 15 minutes – a period in which they might have added more goals.
However, the hosts worked their way back into the game and made 4.25 pay for An Il-born’s missed second-half penalty.
The summary of the 90 minutes shows that, overall, the DPR Korea side had more possession in the home team’s penalty area than the other way around but it paints a very different picture to that opening stage of complete dominance.
