The student-athletes of the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) were taken to school and taught a footballing lesson by the league leading Shanghai East Asia, who flew into the capital and outclassed their hosts with a no-nonsense performance that increased their winning streak to five games as well as maintained their five point lead at the top of China League One.
The visitors were the dominant team throughout but had to wait until the second half before they could finally get the opening goal of the match. BIT, having repelled a series of forceful attacks from East Asia in the opening forty-five minutes seemed to have left their focus in the dressing room at the break and within sixty-seconds of the restart were a goal down after Lu Wenjun headed in Chen Zijie’s cross from outside the box.
East Asia didn’t have to wait long to double their advantage and four minutes after conceding the opener, a second costly lapse of concentration from the BIT back line allowed Wu Lei to crash home an effort from close range after the previously water-tight home defense failed to clear the ball after Zhu Zhengron’s mazy run into the penalty box.
Zhengrong, a half-time substitute, then managed to get his own name on the score sheet when, with the second half not even fifteen minutes old, the striker coolly finished off a ruthless East Asia counter attack to make the score 3-0 and put the game out of doubt.
BIT had the chance to reduce the deficit to two goals with the game drifting towards injury time but their Uruguayan striker, Matias Alonso failed to get his shot from fifteen yards on target after a good spell of possession from the hosts.
East Asia can now return to Shanghai knowing that they handled their business following tricky visits to Chengdu and Beijing and can now look forward to taking on Guangdong Sun Cave in their first home game for almost three weeks.
In other CS1 results, the visiting Shenzhen Ruby fell to the struggling Yanbian Tigers after a 1-0 upset victory in Yanji in a result that leaves Phillipe Troussier’s side slipping away from the promotion spots. Second place Hunan Xiangtao had just about enough in the tank to overcome the high-flying Chongqing Lifan after a tense 2-1 clash at the Provincial People’s Stadium while Wuhan Zull claimed the third spot in the standings after beating bottom side Hohhot Donjin by an identical score line.
