Asian Football

Yes it was.  Final score Guangdong 3, Shenyang 2.

Guangdong regain 2nd place from Shenzhen.

SGE joins the CSL gravy train as coach for Guangzhou Fuli.

Hopefully he can restore some form to the team which has failed to build on its first CSL season success.

EAFF East Asia Cup is the tournament of the yawn teams it seems:

http://au.fourfourtwo.com/news/277569,korea-and-china-play-out-east-asia-stalemate.aspx

Bu Oz have continued on in their unimpressive form: 

http://au.fourfourtwo.com/news/277648,thrilling-end-as-japan-beat-socceroos.aspx

http://wildeastfootball.net/2013/07/the-mads-davidsen-column-china-gain-morale-boosting-japan-result/

The fireworks will hopefully start when plucky South Korea take on the Hegemonists.

China beat Oz 4-3  (Oz get two late goals) and are now in line to win the cup.

Korea vs Japan on now.  Korea need to beat Japan by 2 goals or more to win the cup.

http://www.sportlemon.tv/20130728/vv51f4fc159c29f3.26445167-610846.html

HT 1-1

Japs got a lucky goal on the break against the run of play.  Korea came back with a stunning top corner goal.  Korea all over Japan.

McDonkey!

Eunuchs entertain the emperor by playing keep-uppy. Detail from 15th Century Ming scroll

on view at the British Museum until Jan 5th

Eunuchs juggling their balls????????

Haha. Nice one. Juggling the balls they wish they had.

Only two rounds remain in the CSL and there is a ripple of excitement as 2nd Place Beijing Guoan travel to 1st place Guangzhou Hengda (Evergrande).

Guoan are 6 pts behind but if they can upset the leaders it will be all on for the last game (as positions are decided on head-to-head results rather than GD if points are equal).

Meanwhile the other Cantonese side, Guangzhou Fuli sit in 3rd place and can seal an ACL spot if it beats visiting last place Harbin Yiteng.  A draw or loss means it will have to win in the last round or hope that the chasing Shandong Luneng drops points in the last two games.

Both games kicking off at 8:35 pm NZ time tomorrow (after the Nix - Jests game).

Wow - was out after the Nix match and just caught the last 15 mins of both games.

1. GZ Hengda vs BJ Guoan:  0-0 with Guoan frenetically attacking and some pretty hairy challenges by Hengda to try and  keep the visitors score;ess.

A few minutes before full time and a freekick to Guoan just outside the penalty area ... which is curled into the top corner and the players go ballistic.  Hengda finally show some intent to attack but can't do anything even with about 5 mins extra time.  

It will come down to the last week to decide the CSL winner.

2. GZ Fuli va HB Yiteng: 4-1 to Fuli and they just keep attacking and opening up an inept Yiteng 'defence' - easy to see why they have been relegated.  Fuli grab another goal before full time and attack at will.

Fuli wrap up 3rd place and an ACL spot next season.

CSL finishes on a rather subdued note compared with the last weekend.  1st place goes to Guangzhou Hengda (surprise) who come from behind and draw with Shandong Luneng, which is enough to see off Beijing Guoan who host Henan Jianye (who are dicing with relegation) but can only come away with a scoreless draw.

The draw however means that Henan just pip Dalian Aerbin to the safety of 14th and Dalian join Harbin in China One next season.

Introducing Nutmeg the Wombat, mascot for the Asian Cup

cringe

Hmmm

Japan spanked Honduras 6-0. It will be interesting to see how they go against Australia.

Brazil 6 Australia 0    Sept 2013

France 6 Australia 0    Oct 2013

Japan      Australia        Nov 2014

Asian Cup games to be live on Sky TV in NZ:

http://www.tsmplay.com/football/tv-channels-broadc...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_AFC_Asian_Cup#Br...

They've started broadcasting the preview show this week on Sky Sport.

Wed, 31 Dec 2014 7:09a.m.

Fox Sports commentator and former Socceroo Andy Harper on the Asian Cup which kicks off Jan 9 in Aussie.

http://www.radiolivesport.co.nz/Andy-Harper/tabid/454/articleID/21867/Default.aspx

Upcoming games for China (Group B) in the Asian Cup:

The dragon awakes? http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2015-01/16...

This is what happens when your president likes football *stares at John Key*.

More on ^

'Football : the party's goal

".......  President Xi  [Jimping]  has been a football fan since childhood, when he played for his school team. During his early career he attended weekend matches. He was in the crowd at a Shanghai stadium in 1983 when China lost 5-1 to Watford, a British club. (The People's Daily, a party-run newspaper, says Mr Xi was enraged.) At a meeting in 2011 with South Korean leaders, when he was still vice president, Mr Xi expressed three wishes: for China to qualify for, host and win a World Cup ........ [followed by much of the above post, including: "In 2016 football will become an option in the national university entrance exam]"

- source The Economist, Dec 13th, 2014

NB Keith Pritchett, ex-All White and father of ACFC's James Pritchett, may well have been in that China-thrashing Watford team of 1983. So if China realise President Xi's wish to win the World Cup then we can blame - or congratulate - Pritch senior, among others!

Good article:

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/feb/...

Interesting indeed, although watching the recent Asian Cup and Africa Cup, I think the Asian one has been better in terms of quality.  FIFA rankings aren't a great guide either, they are very inconsistent.  True that Asian teams did poorly in the recent World Cup but 2010 Japan and South Korea made the 2nd round, Australia just missed by goal difference, while only Ghana went through past the group.  It's swings around and there isn't much between the top African and Asian teams.  There are probably better mid range teams in Africa compared to Asia, as football is more the big sport there while Asians do other sports like cricket (India, Pakistan etc) racket sports (South East Asia) etc.

Thanks for that - good observations re quality of teams.  I do not have any knowledge of African teams.  But conversely I could name more African players in the EPL than Asian.

Here is a key part of the Guardian article and Tom Byer's argument - which unsurprisingly is similar to the Whole of Football programme in NZ:

Even more fundamental for Byer is the football culture of a country. And football culture means family and community. “Most of the world’s best players are uncoached,” he says. Instead, they learn from fathers, brothers, uncles and out on the streets. Which explains Africa.

“It’s probably not as organised, but there’s probably more kids that play it than they do out here. Everybody kind of looks at China and scratches their head and tries to figure out why a country with 1.3 billion don’t do well in football. Here’s the reality: nobody plays. And a lot of people don’t get that.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/chi...

50,000 schools offering football training...

*gulp*

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/mar/...

Might go all Western Australian time and try and watch Beijing Guoan (3rd place) host Shanghai Shenhua (1st and with added twuntiness in the form of Cahill) @ 12:35 am tonight.

The game should be a cracker with both sides starting strongly this season, while the Guangzhou sides (Hengda and Fuli) look a bit ordinary so far.

2-0 to Beijing, pretty comfortably done.

Swede Fejzullahu scores in the 90th min, takes off his shirt to reveal a manky handwritten  message on his t shirt "Happy birthday bro" 

Here's one for wellingtonphoenixnixie http://www.scmp.com/sport/hong-kong/article/176654...

Nice to see HK get off to a good start in the WC qualifiers.

WPN - did you go to either of the games in the last week (vs Bhutan or Maldives)?  I enjoyed reading the croud response at the beginning of the games before kick off and the fact that CCTV cut live broadcast until kick off.  Brilliant and stay strong!

Philippines Also having a good start to there campaign.

Just watching Guangzhou Hengda vs Beijing Guoan. 0-0 33 mins in the 1st half.  Massive croud, lots of noise.  The Northern turtles look quite comfortable.

Just over half way through the CSL and it's an interesting season.  GZ Hengda have struggled with off-field disruptions and injuries/suspensions and now sit 3rd behind BJ Guoan and Shanghai Special Patrol Group (aka Team Sven).

Meanwhile 5 points separate 6th and 14th place - tighter than the non-rorted salary-capped A-League. 

http://int.soccerway.com/national/china-pr/csl/201...

Might see if I can catch Guangzhou Fuli travel to Shanghai to take on Shenhua who still have Cahill on the books as well as new arrivals Sissoko and Ba.  

HK travel across the border to Shenzhen to take on China on 3 Sept.

HK fans will be few and far between despite the short distance (CFA embarrassed that they will boo the national anthem).

Hoping that the Pearl of the Orient sucker punches the Guozu!

0-0 China so wasteful.

Fantastic result for HK.  

東方之珠整夜未眠！！

China 1-0 up against Maldives after 9 minutes

China cutting up Maldives like an easily cutty up thing.

But finishing is woeful.

36 mins gone, China 80% possession, 4 shots on goal 1-0.

Wasteful.