After going behind courtesy of Haider Sabbah’s deflected free-kick, Pakhtakor equalised before the break as Darko Markovic took advantage of a fortunate ricochet off defender Salah Siamend.

In the second half Pakhtakor scored four times and also were able to miss a last minute penalty to move onto seven points with two games remaining.

"We got all three points from the match but it will not be enough to go through and we must win our remaining matches in order to qualify for the next round," said Haydarov.

"We expected we would have a tough match after we saw how Arbil played in the previous matches.

"After we conceded the first goal, we started to get into the game gradually and we managed to equalise.

"But our strikers successfully tormented the Iraqi defence in the second half and we managed to score in the closing stages."

Either side of Pakhtakor’s go-ahead goal, Arbil’s Ahmed Salah saw a shot cleared off the line and Luay Salah struck the home side’s crossbar as Akram Salman’s side came close to moving into a strong position to secure a first win of the competition.

But after Nodirbek Kuziboyev, Markovic, Alexander Geynrikh, who missed the late spot kick, and Akmal Holmatov struck in 21 second half minutes for Pakhtakor, Arbil’s chances of reaching the last eight all but disappeared.

"The result was not expected and it was a surprising defeat for us," said Salman.

"We went into the game with an aim to win and we went ahead in the game but the defensive mistakes cost us.

"We were without several players in defence and that was the key to the result.

"Pakhtakor also have a lot of experience in the competition as they have played previously, while it was our first time playing in the tournament.

"When we started to fall behind, it was hard on our players especially due to their mental preparations with the situation in Iraq.

"Our participation in the competition will help increase our experience and hopefully we will play better in the remaining matches of the competition."