Clinical Evergrande finish off Mariners
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E-mail China.org.cn, May 23, 2013
Guangzhou Evergrande secured their place in AFC Champions League last 8 on Wednesday as a 3-0 win over Central Coast Mariners at Tianhe Stadium completed a 5-1 aggregate success for Marcello Lippi's side.
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Muriqui opens the scoring for Evergrande just 8 minutes into the game. |
Goals from Muriqui, Dario Conca and Gao Lin took the Chinese Super League champions into the quarters for the second year in a row.
Guangzhou wasted no time building on their 2-1 first leg win with Muriqui racing on to Gao Lin's through ball, beating the flat-footed Mariners defence in the seventh minute before slotting past Mathew Ryan via the inside of the goalkeeper's right post.
Argentinian maestro Conca was causing havoc and after teasing the Mariners defence on the edge of the area, his pullback to Muriqui drew a clumsy challenge from Bernie Ibini-Isei and a penalty. Conca stepped up for the spot-kick, on the stroke of half-time, and his left-footed strike curled low and to the goalkeeper's right to make it 2-0 and effectively kill off the Mariners' hopes.
With the half moving into injury time, Guangzhou were given the opportunity to extend their lead when Muriqui was upended by Bernie Ibini-isei in the penalty area and Conca struck with aplomb, leaving Ryan rooted to the spot and putting the result beyond doubt.
Despite their advantage, Guangzhou maintained the intensity of their performance in the second half with Ryan again denying Muriqui just two minutes after the restart with a fine stop and, three minutes later, the goalkeeper frustrated Gao as Central Coast clung on to the slenderest of hopes.
Those hopes were finally dashed once and for all in the 68th minute when Conca slipped the ball through to Gao, whose first touch took him through on goal before giving Ryan little chance.
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Lippi satisfied with his team's performance. |
"I'm very satisfied with today's result," said Lippi. "We've been playing a lot of matches consecutively and it might have had an impact on us physically but today's result was good.
"The players concentrated very well, in the game they were well organised and we have realised we are a strong team and we need to continue this way. We have acquired the sort of mentality that we would like to win every match we play."
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