China's Beijing Guo'an saw off a late revival to beat J-League title-holder Sanfrecce Hiroshima 2-1 and break an eight-match win drought in the AFC Champions League yesterday.
Darko Matic and Zhou Ting of Beijing Guo'an tried to stop Hiroshima's Naoki Ishihara. |
Hiroshima's hope of advancing to last 16 suffered a serious blow as the Japanese side endured a second straight defeat in Group G.
"We played this away game in a very difficult situation. It was an away game, there were not too many fans to support us," said Hiroshima manager Hajime Moriyasu.
Beijing were in dominant form throughout in front of a vociferous crowd at Workers Stadium and they led for most of the game after defender Lang Zheng planted a shot into the bottom corner on 21 minutes.
But almost out of nowhere, Hiroshima's Naoki Ishihara controlled a rebound from Okamoto Tomotaka's shot and stabbed home an equalizer on 79 minutes.
However, just four minutes later, Beijing reclaimed the lead when Piao Cheng picked the ball up on the edge of the area before cutting inside and wrapping his foot around a low shot that curled around Nishikawa to secure all three points for the home side.
"I have to congratulate to the players on the win. We deserve it," said Beijing assistant coach Slobodan Kuljanin, who attended the post-match press conference after head coach Aleksandar Stanojevic was sent from the bench by referee Saeid Mozaffari during the game.
"We are promoting attacking football all the time, and we hope to attract fans with beautiful and entertaining football. So far it's been working well. We will stick to it and make it more obvious."
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