On July 27th, the Chinese Super League (CSL) Guangzhou Region saw the highlight of the battle, Guangzhou beat Shandong Taishan by a narrow margin of 2-1, leapfrogging their rivals to the top of the region's standings thanks to goals from Yang Liyu and Ekerson. The win was the first defeat of the season for Taishan. After the resumption of the tournament, Guangzhou showed amazing attacking power, scoring a total of 15 goals in 5 games, with an average of 3 goals per game.
Rallies against Tarzan to open season with first loss
In the first meeting between the two teams at the beginning of the season, Taishan narrowly won 1-0 against Guangzhou by relying on Fellaini's strike. Since then, Taishan has been occupying the top position in Guangzhou. Although Guangzhou team quickly ushered in two consecutive victories, their overall performance did not meet expectations. Especially after Talisca and Paulinho returned to the team, outsiders are pessimistic about Guangzhou's prospects this season.
However, in this crucial battle, Guangzhou not only managed to limit Taishan's offense, but also always found the cracks in the opponent's defense. Yang Liyu's goal was the result of Yan Dinghao's precise passing. Golat and Yang Liyu skillfully moved forward, and even though Golat was offside, it was enough to show Cannavaro's attacking strategy.
One of the major weaknesses of Taishan's defense is overhead ball defense. Although Fellaini has a certain advantage, the center backs Shi Ke and Zheng Zheng are not superior in overhead kicks, plus the goalkeeper of the game Han Rongze is not a counter-attacking goalkeeper like Wang Dalei. In the end, Ickerson's header in the second half sealed the win for Guangzhou.
After the rematch, the Guangzhou team restarted the "minimum spending".
Guangzhou's starting lineup for this match was 442, but the actual formation was 343, with Zhang Linpeng and Gao Junyi as the center backs on the left and right flanks, and Yang Liyu, Gaolat, and Ekerson as the attacking trident. It was this 343 formation that created more attacking opportunities for Guangzhou, and eventually the two strikers scored.
Since the resumption of the Chinese Super League in July, the Guangzhou team played a total of 5 games, in addition to the bye with Henan Songshan Longmen draw and this game, the Guangzhou team broke the opponent's goal at least 3 times. 5 games scored a total of 15 goals, the average number of goals reached 3, the former "minimum spending" of the "Guangzhou Evergrande" is back again.
Undefeated in 7 rounds, Canton tops the division
Although Guangzhou's performance this season has slipped compared to its past dominance in the Chinese Super League, the overall results are quite good. Apart from one draw and one loss in the opening two rounds, Guangzhou is undefeated in their last seven matches with five wins and two draws since the third round. Prior to this match, Guangzhou had the same points as Shenzhen and ranked second in the division by a small margin, only three points behind Taishan.
Before this game, Shenzhen beat Qingdao and tied Taishan in points. If Guangzhou can't win, they will fall to the third place. In the end, in this "6 points" worth of the top of the fight, Guangzhou team 2-1 laugh to the end, and Taishan team and Shenzhen team points equal, by virtue of the small points advantage temporarily topped the first district.
