Brazilian winger Caio was the hero for the Boss on Tuesday night at Bunyodkor Stadium, slotting in the only goal of a tight tie against the Uzbek League leaders.

This victory set-up a re-match with Qatar’s El Jaish – the team who beat them twice in the group stage – and Dalic hoped contesting the early stages of the Arabian Gulf League would sharpen his players up.

He said: “I’d like to congratulate my team for the victory. We played fantastic in this game. “Lokomotiv played very well tonight, but we were stronger than our opponent.

“Our tactical style gave us this victory and sometimes we were lucky. My team tried to keep the result after we scored, it depended on us and we were able to do it.

“I have never lost in Uzbekistan and I am happy to continue this tradition. We are not in a good situation now because we haven’t started our championship, but I hope the team will be better in the semi-finals. We were under some pressure in the first match because it was the first game of the season for us.”

The result saw the Boss proceed for the second round in a row even though they did not gain an advantage in the opening home leg.

“We had a draw in our home game in the round of 16 too,” Dalic said of the meeting with Iran’s Zob Ahan in May.

“Then we beat our opponents in the away match. We did it once more at this stage, which means my players followed all of my instructions well.”