Sorry folks, there's not been a lot of action around here lately (and we still owe you a CSL recap, coming tonight) and of course tomorrow will be predictions about this weekend's upcoming matches. Matchday 3 of the Champions League featured 4 Chinese teams facing off against 4 Korean teams, the 2 home teams won, the 2 away teams lost, unfortunately Guoan was one of the away teams.
Big thoughts:
1. We. Need. Height.
2. I could care less about you "stepping up", next time don't make the mistake!
The big team news was that Du Wenhui (for Martinez), Zhou Ting (for Zhang Xinxin), and Yan Xiangchuang (for Wang Changqing) were all used as starters. Lee also kept Zhang Yonghai on the pitch at center back, this was massive mistake number one. The crowd in Ulsan probably didn't top out at over 1,000 people, and quite possibly more like 500, of which 50 were very loud (or miked up) Guoan fans. What do the Korean fans know/don't know about this competition? Crowds in China were huge for both matches there, crowds in Korea were tiny.
On to the game, Guoan started out fast with two great early chances, the best from a Matic longball to Du, who was too quick with his shot when he had time. From then on, the first half was almost entirely Ulsan.
I don't know much about Kim Shin-wook and couldn't find very much about him online. He wears number 24 for Ulsan and is 1.96 meters and that's about all I needed to know, but after the performance on Tuesday, it wouldn't surprise me if you told me he was Korea's greatest soccer prospect ever. Kim straight up killed it, every long ball, every free kick was incredibly dangerous namely because Kim was huge and the tallest guy Guoan had on the field was 1.83 meters, meaning he won literally every header. It made for an incredibly dangerous first half as Guoan's defense was asleep much of the time, though thank God for Yang Zhi who kept the squad in the game. The only good development for Guoan was Huang Bowen taking a shot that challenged the keeper late in the half, not unusual except this was a rocket from outside the box. Damn, I really wish I could see a lot more of this from Guoan players, instead of constantly trying to play the ball into the box.
It was quite obvious Guoan needed to bring on 1.88 meter Lang Zheng or Paul in the 2nd half, however Lee took nearly 10 minutes to bring on Lang for Zhang Yonghai, which almost led to a goal a few minutes earlier when an Ulsan forward broke into the box (off of a headed long ball) and Zhou Ting gave him a slight push, but fortunately no foul. Just after the Lang move, Lee brought on Tao Wei for Ryan Griffiths.
Yang continued saving Guoan from a major beating throughout the 2nd half, but he was finally beaten when two Guoan defenders (Xu and Zhou) looked like they were totally lost and an Ulsan player was finally able to put one past Yang in the 69th minute.
With all the traffic being one way, it didn't look like Guoan was going to have a chance at pulling this one out, but Tao Wei played a great ball in to the elder Griffiths who was pushed over in the box and the referee gave a penalty kick. As a Guoan supporter, I admit it was kind of a soft call, I was also elated about it as I thought we'd be able to steal a point out of the game.
Huang Bowen stepped up to take the spot kick in the 84th minute and...the keeper made the save. From then on it was a foregone conclusion, Beijing's spirit was shot and there was no way they'd get a point out of the match.
It was an extremely ugly game for a Guoan fan as the side was almost completely impotent, the two best chances came in the very first minute and at the very end of the match. Huang apologized for not scoring the penalty, but a few members of the defense should also be apologetic.
Guoan has now scored 1 goal in 3 games, a miserable stat, made worse by how hard it is to watch their ugly football. We need size, Lee, please take Paul out of the doghouse for at least one match, let's see what happens. We need players to start clicking, at this point it still seems like nobody is on the same page and too many of our defenders, put simply, don't seem to understand how to play defense.
Things are made worse in the Champions League because Newcastle earned a draw in Osaka, meaning first place and fourth place are only separated by 2 points. Fortunately 2 out of the 3 remaining group games will be played at Gongti, so hopefully we will be able to recuperate and advance on top of the group.
Turn the focus on to the league and forget about this result for a fortnight.
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