Zob Ahan denied at the death [VIDEO]

AFC - Zob Ahan were denied a morale-boosting victory going into the first-leg of their 2011 AFC Champions League quarter-final with Suwon Samsung Bluewings when they were held to a 2-2 draw at home to Persepolis on Thursday.

Esmaeil Farhadi, scorer of Zob Ahan's winner in their ACL group stage win over Qatar's Al Rayyan, gave the home side the start when he broke the deadlock with just four minutes at the Foolad Shahar Stadium played.

Captain Ali Karimi drew Persepolis level four minutes after the restart before Portuguese midfielder Hugo Machado scored in the 80th minute with what looked to be the winning goal until defender Alireza Noormohammadi scored three minutes into stoppage-time to earn the Tehran side a share of the spoils.

Zob Ahan head for South Korea for the first part of their ACL quarter-final on Wednesday before last year's runners-up host Suwon for the second-leg on September 28.