At 7:30pm on May 10th, Guangzhou soccer team embarked on their first away game of this season's Central League, facing Shijiazhuang Kung Fu.
Compared to the previous match, Guangzhou head coach Liu Zhiyu made minor adjustments to the starting lineup. Given the reality of playing on the road, the team adopted a 4-5-1 formation with the intention of solidifying the defense and waiting for an opportunity to launch a counterattack. Players such as Parmanjiang, Ling Jie and Fan Hengbo had the opportunity to appear, but still sat on the bench to wait and see what would happen.
Shijiazhuang Kung Fu Team drew 1 and lost 2 in the first three rounds and are currently on the edge of the relegation zone. However, they sent out two foreigners to start this game, which gave them a slight advantage in terms of overall strength. Guangzhou will undoubtedly face a tough battle on the road, and the situation on the pitch at the beginning of the game confirmed this, as Guangzhou could only seek scoring opportunities through limited counter-attacks.
In the 15th minute, there was a sudden change on the field. Guangzhou launched an attack on the left, after Palman Jiang was blown for a foul, Wu Junjie argued with his opponent, and both sides had frequent physical contact, which threw the field into chaos.
Unfortunately, Wu was sent off straight away for being shown a red card by the referee and Guangzhou faced a huge disadvantage of playing with 10 men in the first 15 minutes.
The rainy night was more than enough, and five minutes later, Wang Shijie was accidentally injured in a defense and fell to the ground. He was eventually unable to continue and was carried off the field on a stretcher. Young player Yang Hao came on as a substitute, a substitution that seemed particularly passive.
Guangzhou, playing with one man less, was caught in a passive situation in the second half and was overwhelmed by Shijiazhuang Kung Fu at the end of the half. Guangzhou's ball possession was as low as 32% at one point, almost completely in a passive situation.
Guangzhou goalkeeper Zhang Jianzhi became the busiest man on the field. Before the end of the first half, Shijiazhuang Kungfu took advantage of a corner kick opportunity and foreigner Ogbu scored a goal in the confusion, leaving Guangzhou 0-1 down, and even more embarrassingly, Guangzhou didn't even have a single shot on goal in the first half.
At the end of the game, Guangzhou made adjustments in the midfield, Fan Hengbo came in for Palmang Jiang. Coach Liu Zhiyu's intentions were clear, namely to ensure a solid defense and an attack that relied mainly on counterattacks.
Despite Guangzhou's all-out efforts and successive substitutions of players such as Ling Jie, they still failed to change the game. In the second half of injury time, Guangzhou conceded again.
In the end, Guangzhou lost their second consecutive league game on the road with a 0-2 defeat. The young players once again experienced growing pains in this away game, and how to control their emotions and on-field behavior will be something they need to think deeply about in the future.
