Pakhtakor Tashkent vs Al Ittifaq Dammam, Football AFC Asian Champions League, live match on Tuesday, 26 February 2013 at 11:00 GMT.
FC Pakhtakor Tashkent is an Uzbek professional football club, based in the capital Tashkent. Pakhtakor means cotton-grower in English.
Pakhtakor was the only Uzbek club to play in the top-level Soviet football league and was the only Central Asian club to appear in a Soviet Cup final. Playing in the Uzbek League since 1992, the club has been the undisputed powerhouse in Uzbekistan since the fall of the Soviet Union, winning eight Uzbek League titles, including six in a row from 2002–2007. Pakhtakor also won seven consecutive domestic cups between 2001–2007, winning eleven cups in total. Players for the club have won Uzbek footballer of the Year honours eight times, and Pakhtakor teammates swept the top three spots in 2002. Club managers have been named Uzbek coach of the year twice.
The team is also a perennial competitor in the AFC Champions League, having reached the semi-finals of the competition twice in 2003 and 2004.
Ettifaq FC or Al-Ettifaq Club is a Saudi Arabian professional football club based in Dammam. 'Ittifaq' is Arabic for cooperation. Al Ettifaq was established after the merging of three clubs in the City of Dammam at the year 1944. Al Ettifaq is the first Saudi team to win an international title - the 1984 Arab Club Champions Cup. Al Ettifaq is also the first team to win the Saudi Premier League without any defeat. Al Ettifaq is also the first side from Saudi Arabia to win the Gulf Champions Cup. Al Ettifaq have a total of 13 different titles to their name.
After failing to qualify to the group stage of the 2012 AFC Champions League, Al-Ettifaq qualified automatically to the 2012 AFC Cup, and were drawn in Group C with Kuwait SC of Kuwait, Al Ahed of Lebanon, and VB Sports Club of the Maldives.
Al Ettifaq started the competition as favorites and a strong candidate to win the competition, winning 5-1 in their first group game against Kuwait SC in Kuwait. The second game was frustrating to the Saudis as they drew in their own stadium 0-0 with Al Ahed. They defeated the underdogs of the group VB Sports Club by 6-3 in the Maldives and 2-0 in the reverse fixture. Al Ettifaq sealed their promotion with a 2-2 draw against Kuwait SC before finishing the group with a 3-1 victory in Lebanon against Al Ahed.
Al Ettifaq finished off their season with a hard-fought 1-0 victory against Omani side Al-Suwaiq SC in the Round of 16 to progress to the quarter-finals of the tournament.
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