Friday, May 15, 2009

Matchday 9 Preview : Shenzhen

6 points.

That's what the next week is about. 3 points tonight and 3 points a week from Sunday. Guoan has what is arguably its easiest run of games (though Nagoya Grampus 8 is stuck in between) this week and next, facing off against Shenzhen and Qingdao, both at home. If Beijing wants to be a title contender, its pretty simple, you. must. win. these. matches. When you play weaker teams, especially one like Shenzhen with only one win, its simple, get 3 points.

After the huge win last weekend and today's match, we should be talking about football, but instead, we're talking about a text message. What you say? That's right, a f!@^# SMS sent to a Beijing reporter by a member of the Beijing coaching staff is at the center of newspaper reports these days.

I don't want to discuss that, I don't think its a big deal and its between Wei Kexing (the coach involved) and the reporters, hopefully this issue will be removed from the locker room and the players won't have it in their minds. This is part of the problem with the media blackout in the locker room that Guoan called for a few weeks ago, it means reporters aren't getting what they want and perhaps its led to some negative coverage.

Anyways, to the match, as of right now its not raining in the capital, though the skies are threatening, we'll see what happens tonight, but bad weather could favor Shenzhen, as it will slow down the match and our speedy side. In the CSL era, Guoan only lost to Shenzhen twice, with both of those losses coming during Shenzhen's 2004 championship season. Since then, they've earned 5 wins and 3 draws, this year should be no different.

I'm fairly confident about this one, its going to be interesting what kind of lineup Lee puts out considering the suspensions/injuries and what he used in Changchun. I hope the guys take this one seriously, yes, they should win it, though we've seen before how a team like Shenzhen can sneak up on you (just ask Shandong), so hopefully they will keep focused and play like last week.

T minus 3 hours to kick off!

No comments:

Post a Comment