Champions League Matchday 4 Recap : Ulsan Hyundai

Well, I've had some familial responsibilities as of late which has led to some serious slacking n the blog, as well as missing Wednesday night's game. Having read a lot of the recaps online, I'm not really surprised with what happened, as almost all of them place the blame on the defense. Watching how it happened, I'd totally agree, Oh's all alone on the far side of the box while 3 Guoan players are just standing in the 6 yard box haplessly watching the ball go in. Of course, if the offense was a little more potent, this wouldn't have mattered, so all the blame can't be placed on those at the back, but these major missteps are par for the course. Opponents rarely score against us due to great attacking plays, its typically due to mindless play.

Losing this match was bad, but losing Huang Bowen, who went down with a really horrible looking ankle injury in the 1st half, is far worse. In what was a very rough game on both sides, Huang's injury will really hurt us. He's now going to be out for at least 3 months and though we've had so many midfield options and guys step up, it really hurts to lose such a solid player for so long.

At this point, we're sitting in 3rd place with 2 matches remaining, 4 points behind Nagoya and 2 behind Ulsan. It's fairly simple, get 6 points in the remaining matches and advance, fail to and deal with the disappointment of being eliminated in the 1st round. If that happens, I have a feeling a lot of fans are going to start talking about the future managerial situation for our team. It's away at Shaanxi this weekend, a win would be the best way to forget about this disappointment.

Matchday 4 Review : Chengdu Blades

Victory!

Yes, this is how I feel right now, Guoan has finally gotten back to their winning ways, though they've yet to lose yet, its been over 3 weeks since their last win. This one was extremely watchable and showed football how it should be played.

There were lots of changes for this game, so let's look at the lineup:

Goalie - Yang Zhi

Defense - Zhou Ting, Xu Yunlong, Zhang Yonghai, Lu Jiang

Midfield - Du Wenhui, Matic, Tao Wei, Yang Hao, Martinez

Forward - Joel Griffiths

That means a ton of changes in the midfield, basically an entire overhaul with the exception of holding mid Matic, changing out Wang Changqing, Ryan Griffiths, and Huang Bowen. I don't know what Lee Jangsoo said to the team in the change room, but this was a totally different Guoan squad, taking the match directly to Chengdu right from the start. Griffiths had an early chance that was created purely by hustle, something that had been lacking in the team, but things got good a short while later when Du Wenhui scored a nice goal off a great run and cross from Martinez. That was the highlight of the half, both sides had a few good chances and Beijing's defense still didn't look solid (namely Zhang), but Yang Zhi was up for the few 1st half challenges he faced.

Going into the half up 1-nil was a nice feeling, but the way the team's played this year, I was still fairly nervous about the result, could we hold them off? The nerves quickly went away early in the 2nd half, a questionable offside call against Griffiths had me angered, but moments later, Guoan was given a free kick deep in the Chengdu end (almost by the corner flag). Tao Wei's great delivery was met by a Yang Hao header, knocking the ball deeper in the box for a sliding Griffiths who buried it, making it 2-nil and offering a nice insurance goal. Griffiths was almost able to make it 3 in the 87th minute, but couldn't get the shot off in time and was foiled by Chengdu's large keeper. The only other thing to note was Wang Ke's season debut, coming on for Martinez in the 90th minute.

Huang Bowen is one of my favorites among the current crop of Guoan players, I was there for his first goal as a 16 year old in 2004 and his rocket shots at that age showed a lot of promise, I thought he could be the future of Chinese football. He's still young, only 21 now, and going into his 6th CSL season, but he just hasn't matured to match all the previous expectations fans had for him. It's been obvious in the past few games that he's had problems figuring out how to work with Martinez and the other midfielders and hashing out what his role should be.

Switching Huang and Tao doesn't lose you very much. While Tao is more attacking, he's also very creative, and Matic has shown himself capable of being a solid defensive mid. At the same time, Martinez looked to be revitalized, and was more dangerous than ever before this year, going up and down the wing. Yang Hao was a breath of fresh air, as well, in his first game in the squad this year.

There was some talk about Lee's job security in the run-up to this match, this is simply outrageous. He's brought the team to within a point of a league title and, even if the team didn't get off to a great start, they're still undefeated in the league, currently sitting in 3rd, and also in a great position to advance in the Champions League.

The fans and media are putting too much pressure and too many expectations on this side, this is exhibit A in the case against them. Lee's one of the better CSL managers and one game, or even a few poor outings, isn't enough to condemn him, we need to show more loyalty. We need to have more faith in Lee, his decisions in this match paid off, and he's the man that can take us farthest.

That's that, I hope I don't need to be talking about that anymore this year. A great win, back to winning ways, still undefeated in the league, and have a big weekend clash against Shandong coming up, who is travelling to Jinan?

Champions League Matchday 3 Recap : Ulsan Hyundai

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.

Matchday 2 Review : Changsha Jinde

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

Matchday 1 CSL Top XI

Put together by Soccer News, here is Matchday 1's top players. The newspaper picked a 343 lineup that features 3 Guoan players:

Goalie:
Zong Lei (Changchun Yatai)

Defense:
Xu Yunlong (Beijing Guoan)
Nikolaev (Shenzhen)
Cao Yang (Tianjin Teda)

Midfield:
Shen Longyuan (Shanghai Shenhua)
Huang Bowen (Beijing Guoan)
Yin Xiaolong (Shenzhen)
Hao Junmin (Tianjin Teda)

Forwards:
Otto (Hangzhou Greentown)
J. Griffiths (Beijing Guoan)
Netto (Henan Jianye)