At 19:30 GMT, the 21st round of the Chinese Super League (CSL) was staged at the Wuhua Olympic Sports Center, with Meizhou Hakka welcoming the challenge of Shandong Taishan.
[Meizhou Hakka]
Meizhou Hakka, once ranked fourth in the table, has slipped to sixth place with 8 wins, 6 draws and 4 losses after losing in the last round. Although they drew their last two matches against Zhejiang, and lost against Shanghai Shenhua, they failed to score, and their offense was a bit weak. However, their overall performance this season has been impressive, and they have been able to show their strength against strong teams. The last round of the game with Shenhua was a fierce battle until the last minute before Yang Xu killed, this time the home game, Meizhou Hakka is expected to create trouble for Shandong Taishan.
Meizhou Hakka has a solid performance in both offense and defense, with 28 goals scored and 16 goals conceded, and a full lineup of foreigners, with Rodrigo, Kosovic, and Vukanovic all providing strong firepower on the offensive end. In response to the game, Meizhou team manager Milan said: "The opponent is last year's league champion, the strength is obviously stronger than us, the game will be exceptionally difficult. But the team has had two weeks to recover and prepare for the game, and we will do our best to get a good result."
[Shandong Taishan]
After a recent 1-2 defeat to Shanghai Shenhua and a 1-1 draw with Wuhan Sanzhen, Taishan's hopes of defending their title were rekindled with a 4-0 win over Shenzhen in the last round, narrowing the gap with leaders Wuhan Sanzhen to four points. However, the team is currently full of injured soldiers, Jadason, Liao Lisheng, Sun Junhao and others continue to be absent, Jin Jingdao, Liu Binbin, Wang Tong and others comeback is yet to be revealed in pre-match training.
Taishan's pre-match poster has "Rise" as its theme, but it's very difficult to grab points on the road. For tomorrow's game, manager Hao Wei said, "We will overcome the difficulties and try to win the game." Defender Song Long also said, "All the players are ready for the game, as Hao said, we have to keep 90 minutes of concentration and intensity, I hope this is a wonderful game."
[Historical encounter]
The two sides have only met once in their history, with Meizhou Hakka losing 0-3 at home to Shandong Taishan in the 3rd round of the 2016 AFC Cup.
Expect both sides to start:
Shandong Taishan: 14-Wang Dalei, 5-Zheng Zheng, 11-Liu Yang, 27-Shi Ke, 39-Song Long, 13-Zhang Qi, 10-Moises, 29-Chen Pu, 25-Feleni, 37-Ji Xiang, 9-Cressan
Meizhou Hakka: 22-Hou Yu, 6-Liao Junjian, 20-Dugalić, 21-Wang Wei, 29-Ru Zinan, 11-Jisen, 12-Yin Congyao, 13-Shi Liang, 19-Yang Yilin (U23), 27-Kosovic, 9-Vukanovic
