Jumping to second place in the Suzhou Division table, Shenhua beat old rival Dalian Ren by three points, ending their three consecutive rounds of undefeated spell. However, in the post-match press conference, Shenhua head coach Cui Kangxi's tone revealed a hint of helplessness, "For a coach, I don't want to go through such a game again."
The game went from 2:0 to 2:2, and when Huang Jiahui scored the crucial equalizer in the 86th minute, the Shenhua players were overwhelmed by their loss. Fortunately, Shenhua managed to take this crucial battle against Dalian Ren with a shutout in injury time.
Choi Kang-hee analyzed after the game, "In the first half, we exposed a lot of bad habits, both in terms of formation compactness and effective pressing, and did not do enough. In the second half, although the players improved and performed relatively well, converting two goals, but then the opponents recovered two goals, and even nearly scored a third goal. 2:0 score is a dangerous signal for us, the players' performance seems to be a bit slack, and there are really problems with today's overall performance. I believe that we will all learn something through this game and try to improve in the future."
This game is certainly worth Shenhua's reflection and summarization. Why did the team look at a loss for words after taking a two-goal lead? When Dalian equalized, Choi Kang-hee made a decisive substitution, replacing Adrian with Kim Shin-wook.
Kim Shin-wook, who finished the World Preliminary Round 40, underwent 14+7 days of isolated medical observation and community health management after returning to Shanghai from South Korea. During this period, Jin Xin Yu was unable to conduct regular training and could only conduct simple physical exercises in the isolation room. Last Monday, Jin Xin Yu returned to the team, training with the team for only a week, obviously his physical condition has not returned to the best. From the point of view of Jin Xin Yu's performance on the field, he did not play a proper role, and did not cause too much pressure on the opponent's back line.
Before Kim Shin-wook came on, Shenhua already had four foreigners on the field, so Choi Kang-hee had to remove one of them. In the end, he chose Adrian, the center of the midfield. Although Adrian's form in this game was not ideal, with many mistakes in the first half, he improved in the second half and linked up the team's midfield well. Under his organization, Shenhua played a smooth attack for a period of time in the second half, and the team's first goal was initiated by Adrian.
