As night falls, the flames of the 1/16th final of the FA Cup reignite. The short-staffed Beijing Guoan shook hands with Sichuan Jiuniu, a powerful team in the Central League, 1-1 in a 90-minute battle, but suffered a 2-3 defeat on penalties, and ended up in the last 32 of the AFC Cup with a total score of 3-4.
Before the match, Guoan manager Bilic revealed that the debut of young players will become his biggest expectation for tonight's game. In the face of six international players drafted, foreign aid did not return to the plight of the Croatian skillfully to the old with the new, the starting lineup, Liang Shaowen, Chen Yan Park and Xiaoqiang and three young players who have not previously played in the first team stood out, while the other positions by the Chinese Super League, "familiar faces" to sit down.
Compared to Sichuan Jiuniu, who just finished the third phase of the China League and are in hot form, Beijing Guoan, who are not fully staffed, have obviously not found their best form. After all, their last official match was a bye against Shanghai Shenhua on August 15th. Although Wang Ziming broke the deadlock in the 28th minute with an assist from Cao Yongjing, the superior Sichuan Jiuniu equalized with Zhang Jiaqi in the first half of injury time.
Both sides were unable to rewrite the scoreline and drew 1-1 in 90 minutes of regulation time. According to the rules of the AFC Cup, the match went into a penalty shootout. Wang Ziming took the lead but missed the penalty kick. Although Housen saved Xiao Kun's shot in the third round, Liu Huan and Yang Fan conceded penalties in the 4th and 5th rounds, losing the penalty shootout 2-3 and being eliminated by Sichuan Jiuiu Niu with a total score of 3-4.
After two days of matches in the first round of the main round, the top 16 teams of the AFC Cup have all been produced. Among them, four Chinese Super League (CSL) teams stopped in the round of 32, namely Guangzhou (lost to Qingdao Fanghua Island), Guangzhou City (lost to Sichuan Rongcheng on penalties), Beijing Guoan and Hebei (lost to Shaanxi Chang'an Athletic 0-1). It is worth mentioning that these four teams are all teams in the Chinese Super League title contention group this season.
