Du Wenhui, I'm going to have a hard time forgiving you...
But let's save that disappointment for a little later.
The Jinde club, whether in Changsha or Shenyang, has always struggled to get fans. Yesterday's match saw around 1,000 fans show up, of which at least 100 were the drummers who created an "atmosphere" and were employees of Jinde (the drummers are another holdover from Shenyang).
So we saw a head-to-head between Yang Zhi and Song Zhenyu, two of the Chinese national team keepers. The Guoan lineup featured minimal changes from last week's setup, the only switches were Lang Zheng in for Paul and Emil Martinez getting the start, meaning that Lee Jangsoo started out with Yan Xiangchuang on the bench.
Early on, both teams had some decent chances, each had a corner, but nothing came of it. Of note is that Martinez stepped up to take corners on the left side instead of Huang Bowen, who was taking all the corners in the past. The best chance of the half fell to Martinez in the 33rd minute, but the defender was able to recover and block his shot. The first half was a fairly boring, fairly typical CSL affair, not much doing by either side. I must say, Changsha was utterly pathetic on free kicks, I think every one got blocked by Guoan's wall. At the same time, Zhang Xinxin deserves particular praise for some of his moves coming up on the wing.
At the half it just didn't seem like Beijing's squad was on the same page, the announcers regularly wondered if Martinez was jet lagged or if it was language problems or if he just hasn't been given enough time to mesh with his new teammates, but blame can't be solely placed on him as the squad in general seemed a little out of sorts.
Only minutes into the 2nd half, Lee subbed Wang Changqing and put on Yan Xiangchuang. Many of the early opportunities fell to Changsha in the 2nd half. The 55th minute saw some lazy defending by Guoan lead to a nice breakaway opportunity for Changsha, only for the Beijing defense to recoup, while 10 minutes later Changsha put the ball in the net, though a foul was called on the forward for taking down Xu Yunlong. As the game progressed, it seemed that legs got tired and the field became wide open as both teams were getting more chances. Lee tried to take advantage of that by subbing out Ryan Griffiths and putting on the aforementioned Du.
Madness began around the 70th minute, Changsha got a great opportunity, though Yang came up with a good save off a header, moments later Beijing went on the attack, a botched clearance fell to Martinez, who didn't pull the trigger in time. Then disaster struck, an idiotic refereeing call saw Joel Griffiths see red. I will be the first to admit that it was a foul, probably not for the light push on the defender, but for his going into the Changsha keeper. I'd go as far as saying a yellow card wouldn't be undeserved for the play, but a straight red? For minimal contact? In the last 10 minutes of the game?!? That's some straight up bullshit!
I've talked about how Guoan has shown a great spirit to go for the jugular at the end of games and this one was no different. Even going down a man, the team continued going forward, attempting a great planned set piece play a few minutes later, though the cross was cleared easily. A lot of lying around and "injuries" on Changsha's part to run out the clock and secure a point, but then in extra time, Martinez beat his defender and found himself in space, the keeper goes for the ball and misses, Martinez puts a centering pass to Du who is wide open inside the 6 yard box with nothing but time, a simple tap in and its 1-nil to the Green Lions, but he knocks it off the freaking cross bar, a few minutes later the referee blows for full time and a disappointing result for our boys in green.
Afterwords, Griffiths was still incredulous about how his move on the keeper could be considered a red card. He also complained how Changsha played defensively from the start, though Guoan was able to come up with a few options. Coach Lee had plenty to say after the game, with some harsh criticism of Huang Bowen, stating "if he plays like that again, I'm definitely not going to start him." Huang put a lot of pressure on himself as this was a homecoming for him and him and Martinez never clicked.
Du was definitely disappointed after the game, reassuring me of what kind of player he is and how much he cares. He stated, "The fact that 3 points turned into 1 can be blamed entirely on me" and that he "didn't feel like eating, couldn't eat, I'm depressed over that shot, despite all the goals I've scored in the past, I have no feeling, this one, this was the reason we failed to win today." Lee tried comforting him and said that anyone can make a mistake like this, Du's one to take the blame and will use this to improve himself in the future.
What can I say, that close to 6 points and first place. If Guoan wants to win the title this year, they'll need to win against mediocre clubs on the road. It's still early days, and we're still sitting in 2nd. Hopefully more practice time together will help the teamwork come along, a short break this week as the team has a Friday fixture at Gongti, should be a fun night. Let's hope coming back home will help get these guys on track.
photos and quotes from Sina Sports
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