The penultimate round of the Chinese Super League has seen plenty of goals with only one match having a single goalscorer. Meanwhile, in the chase for Champions League places, one team has fallen by the wayside.
Let’s get crackin’.
All matches kicked off at the same time this weekend so there would be no playing on others results.
We start at the biggest match this round, where third-placed Hebei China Fortune played league winners Guangzhou Evergrande.
As Hebei might have hoped, Evergrande looked hung over from their title win last weekend and didn’t put up much of a fight as Hebei ran away 3-0 winners, a historic first win against the powerhouse for Hebei.
That meant that Tianjin Quanjian had to win to keep up with Hebei and they did just that as they faced relegated Liaoning Whowin. Anthony Modeste opened the scoring after 12 minutes before Zheng Dalun scored a brace in the first half. Modeste got his own second goal from a penalty in the second half, while Olivier Boumal gave Liaoning a consolation goal to make it 4-1.
The two other teams chasing a Champions League spot had a mixed bag of results. Guangzhou R&F won 3-2 over Tianjin TEDA. Renatinho and Apostolos Giannou scored the goals for R&F. Giannou scored twice in four minutes rendering Nemanja Gudelj’s 83rd-minute goal for TEDA useless.
And as we mentioned that one team is now out of the fight for continental football, the eagle-eyed of you will have figured out that the ones that didn’t follow the others, were Shandong Luneng. They lost, quite poorly, 3-0 to Guizhou Hengfeng Zhicheng. A Nikica Jelavic brace and a goal from Ruben Castro meant that Shandong are now without a chance for Champions League play next year and are now doomed to finish in sixth in this year’s Super League.
As for the other matches this round, Shanghai Shenhua absolutely thumped relegated Henan Jianye. Giovani Moreno opened the scoring after six minutes, before Fredy Guarin and even Carlos Tevez scored before halftime. In the second half, Steve pulled one back for Henan, before Guarin got his second and Zhu Jianrong put the final nail in the Henan coffin, making the final score read 5-1 to Shenhua.
Changchun Yatai beat Chongqing Lifan 3-1, after goals from Fan Xiaodong and Long Tan, on either side of an Alan Kardec goal for Chongqing, meant that Changchun took the lead going into halftime. Long Tan was at it once again with 15 minutes to go as he got his second of the night in the Changchun win.
In the final game, Jiangsu Suning beat Beijing Guoan despite playing with ten men for the second half as Tao Yuan got himself sent off after two yellow cards in the 44th minute. Jiangsu managed to hold off Beijing Guoan and Benjamin Moukandjo put the ball into the Guoan net for a 1-0 win to Suning.
Next weekend will see the final round and everything will be decided then.