The CFA Cup’s final has been settled and it will be a two leg affair between Guangzhou Evergrande and Guizhou Renhe. Both teams were on the road today and both played to 2-2 draws in very exciting, competitive matches.
Guizhou Renhe travelled to Jinan this afternoon to take on Shandong Luneng and the 2-2 draw was enough to see them advance on the away goals rule, after the first leg draw was 1-1 in Guiyang. Shandong got on the board first through Wang Yongpo just before the end of the first half. The Guizhou foreign trio combined for a goal knocked in by Zlatan Muslimović just on the other side of the half. A corner kick scramble on the hour mark ended with Simão Mate Junior tapping in a leader for the home side, but it was all for nought when 10 minutes later, Rafa Jorda equalized and took Guizhou into the final.
This evening Liaoning Whowin hosted Guangzhou in the other semifinal match. Liaoning had ground to make up, losing the first leg in Guangzhou 1-0, but came up just short on the night. The Northeasterners, struggling to keep their head above water and out of the relegation zone, had nothing to lose and went all out, but Evergrande scored first when Zheng Zhi scored in the opening minutes. Liaoning had a few solid chances in the first half, but couldn’t put anything past the keeper while Lucas Barrios missed a sitter just before the end of the half. Miloš Trifunović put Liaoning on the board in the 58th minute, but in the 79th it was Jiang Ning putting the tie on ice with a beautiful goal. Liaoning didn’t give up, with striker Yang Xu equalizing things in the 83rd minute and then pressing for a match winner, but with Guangzhou having scored two away goals, the draw was never in doubt.
The final is to take place over two legs with the first to be played in Guizhou on November 10 and the second in Guangzhou on November 17. Guangzhou will potentially be looking to do the double while Guizhou may need to win the cup to get into the Asian Champions League. Neither side has ever won the CFA Cup, so either way the cup will go to a first time winner.
by bcheng
Rong Hao and Jiang Ning can take the accolades from this game. The latter being better than both Gao Lin and Barrios put together.
But Gao wasn’t even playing last night… Agree though that Jiang Ning played really well when he came on. Again. And that was a beaut of a goal. He should definitely get more starts. And has Rong Hao played in that attacking role before? Was impressive there alright.
Some thoughts: Didn’t think Kim looked comfortable at left-back, assume he’ll be back in the centre come Tuesday, given Feng Xiaoting put in another very shaky performance. Playing Cleo and Barrios together didn’t work out too well, hardly a surprise really. We’d better hope nothing happens to Yao Jun before the end of the season because Li Shuai was calamitous in goal last night. And that’s the second match in a row Qin Sheng has ran into someone and kicked them for a yellow after about an hour and got hauled off right afterwards – is that his way of signalling to Lippi that he’s had enough for the evening?