Zainitdin Tadjiev scored the winner against the four-time CIS Cup champions 11 minutes into the Group D opener.

Two-time AFC Cup President’s Cup winners Dordoi Dynamo made a losing start to their Group C campaign, with the Kyrgyzstan champions going down 1-0 to last year’s CIS Cup runners-up FK Ventspils, from Latvia, while Turkmenistan’s Ashgabat FC were lost by an identical score line to Estonians Levadia Tallinn in Group A.

Regar-TadAZ had a miserable start to their Group B campaign as the six-time Tajikistan league winners were hammered 5-0 by Aktobe, the Kazakhstan side they held to a goalless draw in the last edition of the tournament.