Champions League Matchday 6 Recap : Newcastle

6 minutes of sadness/madness

I still don't know how I sat through all 90 minutes of this match. It looked like two sides playing their first game of the season, and for a lot of Guoan players it was indeed their first match (or at least their first match together), while Newcastle only has Champions League games on its schedule right now. It was ugly, very, very ugly, though for 85 minutes of the match, it looked like Guoan's Champions League hopes were still alive.

Before we get into the match, this loss means that Guoan has no chance to advance, Tianjin has already been eliminated, and Shanghai is more or less out (they need to defeat Kashima, a very solid side, and then need Singapore to defeat Suwon or at get a nil-nil draw). A highly disappointing showing for the Chinese sides. The saving face is that Shandong should be able to advance as they face an Indonesian side yet to earn a point, though if FC Seoul defeats Gamba Osaka, there's a chance not even Shandong will move on. This says a lot about Chinese football, especially considering the ease of Guoan's group and the fact they dedicated $20 million to their squad this season. Highly disappointing all around...

Back to the match, and did I mention it was an ugly one? Newcastle controlled the ball for the majority of the 1st half with a number of good chances, fortunately Yang Zhi was once again our savior and came up with a number of great saves. If we didn't have Yang Zhi in the net (and if Newcastle could get a decent challenge on net), it would have been far worse. Guoan only created one chance in the first half, a free kick that fell to Yang Xiangchuang (who was in for Wang Ke, the only change from my proposed pregame lineup) who just couldn't pull the trigger.

There was absolutely no teamwork between the Guoan players, they seemed like complete strangers and it seemed like a number of players were far from match fit. It was a pathetic display of football, but Lee rallied his troops and they came out in the 2nd half and played a lot better, finally attacking a little instead of focusing on stopping Newcastle's attack.

There were some great chances right off the bat, one that should have been a goal if not for the total lack of teamwork as a Guoan player was standing in the box waiting to lay the ball off to his teammate who wasn't expecting the pass despite being wide open. Another a few moments later off a free kick, with a nice head on by Paul to Wang Changqing, who reacted a moment or two too late and knocked it wide. Griffiths was playing some beautiful balls and one in particular fell to Yan, whose shot from a tough angle was wide. A little after the hour mark, Guoan went to the bench, with youngster Yang Yun making his first appearance of the season, coming on for Guo Hui.

Yang instantly made a difference as it appeared he brought some life into the team and it was his sweet pass to Griffiths that saw Guoan go up 1-0 in the 69th minute. After earning the lead, Guoan didn't sit on its heels, creating a few more solid chances. However, during the last 10 minutes, Newcastle brought everyone up the pitch and threatened the keeper more than once. Finally, in the 88th minute, they caught a break when Sasho Petrovski was clearly offside, but the referee completely missed the call.

1-1 and I was fairly flabbergasted, at first blaming it all on Paul, though subsequent replays made it obvious that it was a stone cold offside. 1-1 was not going to be enough for us, and the doom and gloom sunk in, which is probably why we didn't go on the attack. Instead, Newcastle pushed forward for all 3 points, when, boom, a shot from outside the box beat Yang and Newcastle went up 2-1, right before the match was to end.

What can be said? Guoan broke its scoreless streak in this one, after over 320 minutes without scoring, but lost the game in the end. This was a situation where Newcastle couldn't score in a whorehouse for 88 minutes, flubbing shot after shot and being beaten by Yang Zhi to the ball time after time. Who really cares about the Champions League anyways, right? Expect a more in-depth write up on that front, perhaps instead of the matchday 6 preview, but this failure is just too bad.

Always look on the bright side, and time to get 3 points away at Changchun this weekend, now we can focus solely on the league.

Champions League Matchday 5 : Newcastle

Nagoya Grampus - 8
Ulsan Hyundai - 6
Beijing Guoan - 4
Newcastle Jets - 4

That's how we stand going into today's matches. We could go into all the other stats, the goals +/- and everything, but hopefully we won't have to talk about that. It's fairly simple: the top 2 teams go through and for Guoan, that means win 2 and you advance; don't and you're (probably) out.

For Beijing, they've left 7 starters from the previous league match in Beijing to rest up for the weekend clash against Changchun Yatai. Also, as part of the loan deal, Joel Griffiths isn't allowed to play against Newcastle at home. Therefore, the lineup for tonight's match should be a 4-5-1 (more like 4-2-3-1) that will look like this:
Yang Zhi
Zhou Ting, Paul, Lang Zheng, Yang Pu
Zhu Yifan, Sui Dongliang
Wang Changqing, Guo Hui, Wang Ke
Ryan Griffiths

Why? First, the flight to Australia was 21 hours and after tonight's match, they head straight back to Beijing to prepare for the weekend's match in Changchun. Also, the A-League is currently in their close season, the season ended in January and won't start up again until August (not to mention Newcastle finished in last place in the 2008-09 season). Most of all, while Guoan still has a shot at advancing, if you ask the fans, winning the league is most important, the Asian Champions League is viewed as a minor after thought.

According to coach Lee, this is not meant as a "second team", these are fresh legs, veteran players who are highly skilled. Nice try, Lee, but Zhu's yet to play a match and many are starting their first match. The central defensive pairing has never played together, either, though both being taller center backs, we should be able to control the air. Lee also complained a lot about the condition of the field, which the Aussies admitted was in crappy condition.

So its going to be an interesting test for this Guoan squad tonight. At the same time, these players should be hungry having not gotten a lot of time this year and, this is their chance to make a positive impression on the manager. Yes, I'm not too concerned with the Champions League, but with Tianjin already eliminated and Shanghai having a very tough hill to climb, it would be nice to have the other 2 Chinese teams come up with a respectable showing. 3 points tonight will break our scoreless streak and will point us in the right direction.