Xavi: I feel really disappointed, I won’t talk about the referee’s decisions

Al-Sadd head coach Xavi Hernandez expressed his disappointment after his side’s 4-1 defeat to Al-Hilal in the first leg of their AFC Champions League semifinal.

Speaking at the post-match press conference, Xavi said: “I feel really disappointed. We were the better side before Abdelkarim was sent of and we had to play with ten men. From my point of view, it was two games – one before the red card and one after it. It was difficult to attack and defend with ten players only and we suffered a heavy defeat.”

He added: “It is a bad result but we will not give up in the second leg. It is not over yet and who knows, they may face the same situation that we did today. There is another half to this tie, with 90 minutes remaining and we are going to give our best effort to get the win.”

“Unfortunately, we will miss key players like Baghdad as well, in addition to Abdelkarim. But we will try our best and we will not lose hope.”

As for the refereeing decisions, Xavi said: “I don’t want to talk about the referee because he took many decisions and I won’t comment on them.”

Xavi also said: “I did not expect this bad scenario because we were the better side. I had confidence in my team, especially in the first half hour when we created many chances. We were closer to scoring until the match turned around after the sending off.”

Asked about the fan support, he said: “The fan atmosphere motivated the players to give their best performance. Qataris love football and you will see the Qatari fans in all the games at the Club World Cup.”