A fairly tepid encounter came alive early in the second-half as the Saudis took the lead from the spot after Seol Ki-hyeon had been bundled over in the box.

But Tadjiyev levelled for the home side shortly afterwards and both sides had chances to claim the points in a lively second period.

Pakhtakor enjoyed the upper hand throughout the opening 45 minutes and only some stoic defending from Al Hilal kept the scoreline blank at the break.

The closest the home side came to breaking the deadlock was in the 21st minute when Odil Ahmedov struck a delightful curling, dipping effort that a scrambling Mohammad Al Deayea just managed to fingertip around the post.

Al Hilal looked infinitely more threatening in the second-half and took the lead 10 minutes in.

Seol’s incisive run into the box was brought to a halt by a clumsy challenge from behind but the ball ran through to Christian Wilhelmsson who sidefooted home at the far post.

However, the Swede’s effort was ruled out as referee Sun Baojie had already blown his whistle to award a penalty. Radoi stepped up and hammered his spot kick low to keeper Ignatiy Nesterov’s right and into the bottom corner.

Their lead was short-lived, however, as Pakhtakor equalised within two minutes. Al Deayea’s weak punch from Alexander Geynrikh’s corner was headed back towards the Al Hilal goal and Tadjiyev nipped in front of the keeper to nod home from close range.

Nesterov did well to keep out Khalid Aziz’s dipping effort from distance in the 70th minute and when Seol turned the ball back in, Ahmed Al Fraidi could not find the target from eight yards.

Andreev then blazed over at the far post before Geynrikh nearly grabbed the winner in spectacular fashion when he smashed a bouncing ball from 30 yards but his effort from an acute angle hit the outside of the post.

Ahmedov sliced well wide from the edge of the box with a clear sight of goal before Al Hilal nearly snatched the points with four minutes to go when Yasser Al Qahtani played in Seol but the Korean’s angled shot was kicked away by Nesterov.