Steelers sneak into Asia last 16
Print Edition
POHANG Steelers became the first East Asian team to reach the AFC Champions League last 16 yesterday as an upset and a late own goal elsewhere set up a tense final round of group games.
The 2009 winners from South Korea beat Uruguay star Diego Forlan’s Cerezo Osaka 2-0 away to clamber into the knockout stages, leaving their Group E rivals all locked on five points each.
Defending champion Guangzhou Evergrande missed its chance to reach the eliminators on Tuesday, meaning it will be all to play for in East Asia as the group stage wraps up next week.
Australia’s Central Coast Mariners cruelly lost to a stoppage-time own goal as they slid off the top of Group F to lie level with Beijing Guo’an and Sanfrecce Hiroshima with six points.
Beijing scored twice in five second-half minutes against Hiroshima, but then Naoki Ishihara outdid the host with a brace in just three minutes to earn a pulsating 2-2 draw.
And Thailand’s Buriram United shocked Shandong Luneng 1-0 to score its first win of the competition and draw level with the Chinese team and Cerezo on five points in Group E.
Lee Myung-joo and Kim Seung-dae scored either side of half-time for Pohang to earn its third win and establish an unbridgeable six-point gap at the top of the group.
In Gosford, the Mariners doggedly repulsed last year’s runner-up FC Seoul, but their rearguard action was undone a minute into injury time when skipper John Hutchinson turned a cross into his own net.
“The first thing we’ll do when we walk into the dressing room is put our arms around ‘Hutch’ and pick him up,” said Mariners coach Phil Moss after the 0-1 defeat.
Beijing went ahead against Hiroshima in dubious circumstances when Peter Utaka’s shot appeared to come off Shao Jiayi’s arm and crept over the line in a goal credited to the Chinese international. Shao then turned creator with a glorious flick to set up Ecuadorian Joffre Guerron for the second, in what appeared enough for victory.
But forward Ishihara had other ideas and fired a brace within 3 minutes to earn a vital point for Hiroshima.
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