China's Asian Cup hopes hit snag
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail China.org.cn, October 16, 2013
|
|
|
China's Wu Xi (second right) and teammates celebrate after a goal against Indonesia during their AFC Asian Cup football qualifying match last night in Jakarta. |
Indonesia produced a spirited second half display to hold China to a 1-1 draw in Tuesday's AFC Asian Cup 2015 qualifier at Gelora Bung Karno Stadium as the hosts picked up their first point in Group C.
Wu Xi's close range finish had opened the scoring for China nine minutes before half-time with the visitors seemingly on course to record a second consecutive win of the campaign having dominated for the majority of the first half.
But Boaz Solossa's strike from the edge of the box denied China a valuable win as they compete with former champions Iraq and Saudi Arabia for the two automatic qualifying spots in a difficult Group C.
The draw put China second in the group at the halfway stage with Iraq, one point behind, due to host table-toppers Saudi Arabia later. Indonesia is bottom with one point.
In Jakarta, China was on top in the early stages and lone striker Yu Dabao twice went close before midfielder Wu broke the deadlock in the 36th minute.
Yu skilfully spun away from defender Victor Igbonefo inside the penalty area and his pass across the edge of the six yard area was slid into the net by Wu with goalkeeper I Made Wirawan drawn out of position.
The hosts made a better start to the second half and China goalkeeper Zeng Cheng was called into action five minutes after the restart to push away a header from first half substitute Titus Bonai before Raphael Maitimo shot narrowly over soon after.
Feng Xiaoting hit the crossbar on the hour-mark, and the miss proved costly when Indonesia equalized on 68 minutes with Solossa's first-time strike from the edge of the box.
"For me, the result is disappointing as we came here to take three points. We did not have a lot of luck as if we could have scored an early goal we could have controlled the game," said China coach Fu Bo.
"But we still played with our football philosophy and we were trying to play with different tactics in the match."
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)