There are now only seven games left in the 2014 CSL season and it’s going down to the wire. The sides in immediate danger of staying up all struggled over the weekend while a number of sides likely pushed themselves into safety. Guangzhou Evergrande went wild on Liaoning, while Beijing continued to keep pace. It was derby day in Shanghai and it lived up to it’s billing, including incidents outside the stadium pre-match. Here are all the weekend’s goals:
Dalian Aerbin 0-0 Guangzhou R&F
While the number of Asian Champions League positions hasn’t been fixed yet, much like last year R&F are working on throwing away their chances of continental football down the stretch. Dalian hasn’t been the most difficult place to travel to this year, but only coming away with a point leaves a number of sides hot on Guangzhou’s heels.
Shanghai Shenxin 0-1 Tianjin Teda
Just as it looked like Shenxin would come away with a much needed point in their fight to stay up, Tianjin managed a goal off a bad clearance as Wang Xinxin propelled the visitors to victory with less than 20 minutes to go.
Beijing Guoan 2-0 Harbin Yiteng
It was a “boring” 2-0 victory for Guoan, compliments of a Dejan brace. The big man got his first 21 seconds into the match and added another in the 72nd minute, taking him into double digits for his debut CSL season. Harbin was always going to struggle, but never even had a chance, especially after going down to 10 men just after the hour mark due to Darko Matic going down easily after a Rodrigo headbutt away from the play.
Guizhou Renhe 0-1 Changchun Yatai
Changchun’s mercenaries continue to deliver for the northeastern side as they battle to stay up. Yang Xu scored the match’s only goal in the 16th minute, almost assuring Yatai CSL football in 2015, while the struggles in Guiyang just seem to continue.
Hangzhou Greentown 3-1 Jiangsu Sainty
In this “local derby”, Hangzhou dominated as they earned a much needed three points and move themselves away from the relegation danger zone. Despite a 0-0 first half, it was a goals bonanza in the 2nd half, with all four goals coming in the final 45 minutes as Hangzhou maintains their impressive home record.
Shanghai Shenhua 1-1 Shanghai East Asia
Shenhua and East Asia played out the most intense Shanghai derby since the early 2000s when Shenhua and Inter Shanghai fought for local supremacy. East Asia missed several clear-cut chances in the first half before Shenhua took the lead through Jiang Kun. Wu Lei had his penalty saved by Qiu Shenjiong before half-time, but Zhu Zhengrong pulled one back with a first time cross-cum-shot which floated over the defence and into the net.
It was a tough week for Evergrande having gotten knocked out of Asia, they had a lot of pent up frustration to unleash and unfortunately for Liaoning, they were the side it was unleashed on. It was a crushing defeat as the champions were absolutely dominant, and even more painful because it severely damages Liaoning’s goal difference and could be the factor in seeing them go down.
Henan Jianye 1-2 Shandong Luneng
Shandong gets things back on track with an important win on the road in Henan. Liu Binbin scored a fine goal late in the first half to put Shandong up, despite Henan somewhat having the advantage in chances. When Jianye finally broke through, it came off a Ryan McGowan own goal, though a Dai Lin shot from distance on the hour mark was the difference, securing all three points for Shandong.
Can someone please explain why Fuli are in 4th place, but on equal points with SIPG and with a better GD?
Because you aren’t looking at an accurate table. Both Sina and Sohu have Fuli in 3rd place. That said, it’s important to note the first three tie breakers are based on head-to-head results (in this case irrelevant because R&F have only played East Asia once so far & it was a draw).
Thanks (phew!). The table is the one on this website (and also on soccerway).
Isn’t the usual hierarchy for equal points:
1. Goal difference
2. Goals scored (“for”)
3. Head to head
Gasp! The site provides inaccurate information? Sorry for that, blame it all on soccerway. There is the “usual hierarchy” and then of course there’s China, the CSL works like this:
1. head-to-head match points
2. head-to-head goal differential
3. head-to-head goals scored
Then all these things being equal (as is currently the case between R&F and East Asia as they tied the one match they played), it goes to goal differential.
Ha ha. Certainly wouldn’t attribute inaccurate information to you and the other posters!
So for the order of league positions it’s football with Chinese characteristics then…
Our league tables are pulled from an unknown source by an automated script in a plugin.
Something wrong with the Shanghai derby highlight package. It only contained one highlight, an East Asia chance 🙁
That’s now fixed Feilipu. Apologies for that.
No worries, thanks for fixing that. I had to see Jiang Kun score(and more importantly make a run) for myself. Also a feicahng piaoliang goal by Zhu Zhengrong!
Sorry I misspelled feichang piaoliang(very nice). I love that fact that the commentators say that a a lot and the fact that my beginner mandarin skills allow me to recognize it when they do;-)
Indeed. In fact, sometimes it seems that the commentators’ mandarin skills are beginner level.