The Bahraini side looked to be cruising after Mohamed Al Romaihi gave it a 48th minute lead but was undone with quick strikes from Amir Hossein Hosseinzadeh and Domagoj Drozdek.
“For me, it is important to play beautiful football but the most important thing is to achieve results. Everyone is sad and shocked by this result, as we prepared the players mentally because this match is the first half of the challenge,” said Ashour.
“We have to recover and plan for the return match and it doesn’t matter that we have to play away from home,” he added.
The sides meet again on Tuesday in Tabriz.