2011 Sep 13 View From Gongti: Beijing Guoan 0-0 Liaoning Whowin
After a long international break, Beijing Guoan was back in action Saturday night at Worker’s Stadium as they faced off against Liaoning Whowin in an important late season match. While Guoan no longer has a chance at the title, with only eight matches left in the season, they are fighting to keep hold of second place, giving them entry in next year’s Asian Champions League.
Liaoning, who sit in third place, are also fighting for a spot (the top three sides get in), but Saturday’s 0-0 draw mean the spots are still up in the air.
The match opened with a lot of early action, both sides created good scoring chances in the opening few minutes, Guoan’s coming from a Wang Changqing centering pass to Joel Griffiths, who didn’t get a clean shot off. Perhaps because of the frenetic early pace, things settled down to a crawl for the next 40 minutes.
The second half wasn’t much different, but Xu Liang almost saved the day with a free kick from just outside the box in the 75th minute. His curving shot was on target, but the keeper got a hand on it and knocked it over the bar. Walter Martinez came on as a second half substitute, but flubbed a shot on a wide open goal.
Another match where the Beijingers failed to capitalize on scoring opportunities and only walked away with a single point. Now they go on the road for two league matches and a FA Cup match between returning to Gongti to host Henan Construction on September 24th.
Read Brandon's full match report at WildEastFootball.
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