Sasa Ognenovski made a triumphant return home as the defender opened the scoring and Korean outfit Seongnam Ilhwa recorded a crucial 2-0 win over Melbourne Victory in AFC Champions League Group E.

Ognenovski slid home the opening goal of a scrappy match in the 40th minute before Yun Young-sun then made sure of the result with the second five minutes from full-time.

It was a scrappy opening half that featured four bookings. Seongnam had the first chance with Mauricio Molina’s angled shot denied while after 21 minutes, a fierce long shot from Kim Sung-hwan rose over the bar.

Costa Rican Marvin Angulo had Melbourne’s best chance of the half, latching onto some good work from Robbie Kruse and Nick Ward but hitting his shot straight at Jung Sung-Ryung.

Keeping with the nature of the game, Ognenovski’s goal five minutes before the interval was far from pretty.

Ward gave away a free-kick in a dangerous area and Molina delivered the ball into the box. It hit Leigh Broxham then the bar and the rebound was out of Mitch Langerak’s reach. Former Queensland and Adelaide defender Ognenovski was on hand to tuck it away.

Melbourne pressed hard for an equaliser but Kruse stumbled in the box and Hernandez fired a long-range effort straight at the keeper.

Those misses were to prove costly as Song Ho-young won a corner and from that Yun rose unmarked to nod the ball home.