Gosford: Coach Cosmin Contra insists China’s Guangzhou R&F fully deserve their maiden appearance in the group stage of the AFC Champions League after recording an eye-catching 3-1 win over Australia’s Central Coast Mariners in Tuesday’s play-off.
Jiang Ning opened the scoring after just eight minutes at Central Coast Stadium, and after Guangzhou survived a strong start to the second half from the home side, Lu Lin added a second just before the hour mark.
Josh Rose’s spectacular own goal from just inside his own half with just under two minutes remaining extended Guangzhou’s lead before Glen Trifiro’s stoppage time free-kick handed the home side a consolation having been outplayed for the majority of the contest.
“I am very happy for my players because they worked very hard in the last six weeks. I think we deserve to go through to the group stage as in general, we were the better team,” said Romanian coach Contra, who replaced Sven-Goran Eriksson as Guangzhou coach at the end of last year.
“We scored very fast in the first 10 minutes and I think this changed the game for the opponent also and we had more space for counter-attacks and we had three or four more chances on these counter-attacks, but we didn’t score.
“And after we survived the first 15 minutes of the second half, after the second goal, we had the victory in our hands.
“We scored very fast and this opened the game up, then it was more difficult to attack us as we had more space and we have players who can make very good counter-attacks. We were lucky on some occasions as they pushed very hard in the second half.”
Guangzhou will now travel to Japan next week to face J.League champions and 2008 AFC Champions League winners Gamba Osaka in Group F, which also contains 2010 continental champions Seongnam FC from Korea Republic and Thailand’s Buriram United.
“I don’t know much about our opponents as I was focused on these two games, but we will sit down and look at the three opponents we will have in the group and I will have more information in the next few days,” added Contra having seen Guangzhou also beat Singapore’s Warriors FC 3-0 in last week’s preliminary round.
“I think we have a chance as we have proven our self in these two games against very good teams.”
The defeat ended Central Coast’s chances of securing a fourth consecutive appearance in the group stage of the AFC Champions League having reached the Round of 16 in 2013.
“We gave ourselves a mountain to climb after conceding that early goal and we didn’t defend the diagonal well and we didn’t defend the goal well. It was a quality finish, but it is probably the story of our season as we give way cheap goals,” said Central Coast coach Phil Moss.
“We had good possession, we had some good entries into their box tonight, but it is just that cutting edge in front of goal.”
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