Matchday 1 Review : Chongqing Lifan

Satisfaction.

After watching many of the other sides open up this 6th season of the Chinese Super League, it was finally Guoan's chance Sunday night. In front of a big crowd of 38,000 supporters, the Green Lions didn't let their fans down.

A few minor changes were made to the lineup that earned a draw in Japan, this time Lee Jangsoo set out a 442 using Yang Zhi between the pipes, Zhang Xinxin, Xu Yunlong, Paul, and Matic at the back, Huang Bowen, Yang Xiangchuang, Wang Changqing, and Lu Jiang in the midfield, and the fabulous Griffiths brothers up top. Chongqing responded with a 451 that didn't produce much more than a few decent counterattacks.

Guoan played hard and controlled the ball early and were rewarded with a great goal when Xu Yunlong played in a beautiful pass that Joel Griffiths buried in the back of the net only 14 minutes in, though the celebrations came too fast as only a minute later, Costa Rican Guinee knocked home a goal to equalize.

At the half, sitting on a 1-1 draw, I feared I made the wrong decision coming to the game as there wasn't too much action. Having seen some of the other scores from the weekend, I was worried Guoan wouldn't be able to put the game away, though they continued to control the ball in the 2nd half and 52 minutes on Xu Yunlong gave us the go-ahead goal knocking in a loose ball in the box. Just a bit later, Guoan knocked in another one, though the referee called it off due to a foul. Huang Bowen made up for it slotting in a penalty kick in the 84th minute on a play where there were at least 2 fouls, one on Ryan Griffiths and another on Wang Changqing in the box. The play was set up by Guoan's big transfer pickup, Martinez, who only recently arrived in Beijing and came on as a substitute in the 72nd minute.

So a fine 3-1 win, capped off once again with a late goal, it seems like Lee's strategy is always to go for the win and so far its paid off, with 2 late goals in 2 games (and a close call or 2 in Japan).

In his postgame press interview, Lee had a lot of good things to say about Martinez and was also complimentary about Chongqing and their coach, Wei Xin, who played under Lee during his stint as a coach of Chongqing during the late 90s.

After the game, Huang Bowen stated confidently that although Guoan scored 3 goals, this wasn't the best football they could have played, and in the weeks to come there will be more to see. A number of players talked about nerves as this was the first home game and the large crowd in attendance.

The biggest sticking point was Guoan's Cameroonian defender, Paul. His mistake is what led to Chongqing's goal and there were a few times where he seemed unable to handle Guinee, leading to some dangerous moments whenever Guinee had the ball. He was up for some sharp criticism from the manager after the match, Lee stating that if Paul would have stood his ground instead of going for the header, it is unlikely Chongqing would have gotten the goal, however the manager also praised how he was able to recover from the error.

While this may lead to worry as the season moves on, on the day, it was a minor blip in an overall celebratory atmosphere. The talk this year is that this is the "Dragon team" (龙队) as Xu Yunlong is assuming the captaincy, and our captain sure came through last night with a man of the match performance. A nice warming win on what turned out to be a very cold night at Gongti.