On the night of Sept. 20, the Dalian soccer team was
China Premier League (CPL)
's 16th round bye, narrowly defeating Hebei with a thrilling 2-1 victory at home. After the match, Dalian
head coach
Xie Hui as well as Hebei's
head coach
Jong-Oh Kim attended the press conference together for an interview.
Reviewing Dalian's performance, Xie Hui said: "In today's game, three of our players made their debut and another four were wearing their uniforms for the second time, so we were a little rusty in team bonding and played a little rough. Although we won the game, many parts of the performance were not satisfactory. Especially against Hebei, who needed to defend in depth, it was as challenging as it was at the beginning of the season for our new lineup. However, it's reassuring to see that both Bosanjic and Manzocchi showed a lot of strength, so I'm optimistic about the progress of our gelling."
When asked when the four foreign aiders will reach their ideal state, Xie Hui responded, "I think the first two foreign aiders are integrating very fast, scoring in the last game and assisting and scoring today. The other two players just joined today and I am quite satisfied with their performance."
"Today's game was more difficult than the subsequent games because we had different expectations. Our team is better in close games, and today's game against a deep opposing defense where we needed to slow down the pace was more challenging for our personnel. It will take transition time for the new additions to gel, but I saw positives through their performances. Moving forward, our team needs to improve further in terms of possession, ball movement and dominating the game."
Talking about Hebei's performance in the match, Kim Jong-oh summarized, "At the moment, we have more serious problems with injuries to our star players, so we fielded many young players. Nonetheless, the young players made up for their shortcomings in other areas by running relentlessly and presented us with a great game."
