Soft goals cost Auckland City

Auckland City FC's goalkeeper Jacob Spoonley watches as the ball hits the back of the net after Sanfrecce Hiroshima's Tsukasa Shiotani scored. Photo / AP

Auckland City coach Ramon Tribulietx was left lamenting a missed opportunity last night.

It wasn't that the New Zealand side should have won - Sanfrecce Hiroshima were clearly the better side - but Auckland City didn't get the chance to test the J-League champions to the limit.

After being almost flawless defensively in Morocco last year - where they didn't concede a goal until just before half time in their third match - the Oceania champions gave up two soft goals yesterday.

The first, after just nine minutes, was the killer blow, allowing Hiroshima to play their counter punching game for the rest of the match.

"We expected them to have a little more ball but having scored that early goal set up the perfect game for them," said Tribulietx. "That's the price you pay and it was always going to be difficult from there."

Auckland City monopolised possession - 67 per cent across the match - but struggled to create clear cut chances, with Hiroshima defending in deep with almost their whole team behind the ball.

"We were very patient [in possession] and we had to be because of their counter attack," said Tribulietx "With the ball we were very good though maybe we lacked a little bit of penetration."

But overall Tribulietx found more positives than negatives from the club's third Club World Cup match against Japanese opposition, after a 2-0 defeat to Kashiwa Reysol in 2011 and a 1-0 loss to Hiroshima three years ago.

"We did some things well and it's still a progression," said Tribulietx. "It's quite a difference to losing 2-0 in the past [and] having 11 players hanging off the crossbar and defending. It's the process. There are ups and downs and now we are in a down but hopefully we will {learn) from this."

Some players in the squad fly home today (NZT) with the remainder to departing Japan on Saturday. Their final ASB Premiership match of the season is against Hawkes Bay on December, before the competition has a brief Christmas break.