The visitors took the lead at Foolad Shahr Shahr Stadium through Robson Ponte just before half-time only for Sepahan to hit back with a Mahmoud Karimi equaliser less than 60 seconds after the interval.

The Japanese side have the advantage of an away goal in hand for the return match in Saitama next week, but on the basis of Sepahan's performance in the first leg, Croatian Bonacic genuinely believes that they can turn things around in Japan.

"I think we always have hope. Urawa are a strong team but tonight's game showed me that we have a chance and we are determined to get a result in Tokyo," said Bonacic.

"We tried to give our best but the match finished 1-1.

"But tomorrow is a new day and a new match and this final is 180 minutes. The first 90 is finished and now, we are just waiting for the final 90 minutes.

"We didn't create a lot of scoring chances but Urawa are not a village team. They are strong but we didn't let them create many chances as well."

Urawa Reds coach Holger Osieck was reasonably pleased to leave Esfahan with a share of the spoils.

"I think the 1-1 result is a suitable one for us. It leaves the opportunity for both teams to still win it in the second leg," said the German.

"But for us in particular, it is important because we came here with the aim to achieve a result that would leave us with the opportunity to get through in our home game.

"So I think for us the score was very good."

Osieck admitted that his team were caught out by Sepahan's decision to bring on Mohsen Hamidi and Ebrahim Lovinian in place of Jalal Akbari and Saeid Bayat at half-time, a move which paid almost instant dividends with Karimi's goal.

"Sepahan substituted two players at half-time and that gave us a bit of a surprise," he explained.

"They tried to overrun us and they were successful. Although our players tried to adjust (to the changes), they couldn't adjust quickly enough to the players who were on the pitch and they scored their goal."