Al Jazira’s midfield dynamo Park Jong-woo feels the Pride of Abu Dhabi can use UAE rivals Al Ahli’s run to last year’s AFC Champions League final as motivation to finish their 2015-16 season on a high.
Jazira endured a woeful first half of the campaign domestically, just as the Red Knights did while attempting to defend their Arabian Gulf League title last season. But Ahli used Asia to turn their fortunes around, eventually losing 1-0 to Guangzhou Evergrande in 2015.
Jazira claimed a group stage place with an enthralling 5-4 penalty shootout victory against Qatar’s Al Sadd in the playoffs earlier this month, and Park says Jazira can use Ahli’s blueprint.
“Our aim is to win the title of course. All the players want to win the AFC title. We can follow what Ahli did last season but hopefully we can go one better and win it,” said Park, who also feels star striker Ali Mabkhout’s recent goalscoring exploits will be vital if Jazira are to go far.
“We can use Ali Mabkhout,” he added. “He was the top scorer in the Asian Cup last year and has been playing really well recently, so we must help him to score.”
The South Korea international also feels he can utilise his own previous Champions League experience to help drive the Pride of Dhabi to continental success, having played with former club Guangzhou R&F in last year’s competition.
“When I was in China with my previous team I played six games so I have experience of playing in high pressure games and I will definitely bring that experience and other positive things for Jazira,” said the 26-year-old.
Jazira travel to Iran to take on Tractor Sazi in their opening Group C fixture on Wednesday and Park said the competition is a chance to further build on an excellent start to life under new head coach Henk Ten Cate.
Jazira have won their last four games and lost just once in seven since the Dutchman took over, and Park believes they need to get their campaign off to a good start in Tabriz and show the rest of Asia that their awful start to the current campaign is firmly behind them.
“It will be a very important opportunity for the club and also for me because every player wants to play in the AFC Champions League,” said Park. “This is also a very big burden for the players and the management because we have to show them who we are.
“Always the coach says we have to show who we are on the pitch. This is very important because we don’t deserve to stay in the bottom of the table, so we must show who we are on the field. This is our motivation, to show how good we are.
“We have to focus on the Champions League because everyone knows this is one of the most important matches of the season for us. If we win against Tractor Sazi we can also be more positive in the Arabian Gulf League, but if we lose then the confidence will go down so we have to win.”
