By Michael Church
HONG KONG (Reuters) – South Korea’s Gwangju FC continued their perfect start to the league phase of the Asian Champions League Elite on Tuesday as Jasir Asani scored twice in his side’s 3-1 win over Malaysia’s Johor Darul Ta’zim to notch up a third victory in a row.
Thailand’s Buriram United are second in the early standings of the league phase following their 1-0 win over Pohang Steelers while Shanghai Port defeated Australia’s Central Coast Mariners 3-2 and Yokohama F Marinos drew 2-2 with hosts Shandong Taishan.
Asani scored twice inside the opening six minutes to give the K-League side an early cushion with Feroz Baharudin halving the deficit with a 28th-minute header.
Gwangju’s win was confirmed with two minutes remaining when JDT’s South Korean defender Park Jun-heong put the ball in his own net with two minutes of normal time remaining.
Buriram, meanwhile, moved up to second in the standings on seven points with a 1-0 win over three-times Asian champions Pohang when Guilherme Bissoli scored the only goal of the game in Thailand 11 minutes after the restart.
Shanghai Port claimed their first win of the campaign when Li Ang’s second minute header put Kevin Muscat’s side in front and Wu Lei’s close range finish doubled the home outfit’s lead.
Mikael Doka pulled one back for Central Coast with a strike from distance but Mathias Vargas’ clinical finish from the corner of the area restored Shanghai’s two-goal lead before Nicholas Duarte’s stoppage time consolation.
In Jinan, Shandong’s Zheng Zheng scored two minutes into stoppage time to earn the Chinese side a point against Yokohama F Marinos, last season’s runners-up, the defender heading in from close range having seen an initial effort hit the crossbar.
Cryzan had given Shandong the lead in the 43rd minute only to see his goal cancelled out by fellow Brazilian Anderson Lopes with a header nine minutes into the second half.
Yan Matheus looked to have won the game for Marinos three minutes from time when he found the bottom corner of Wang Dalei’s goal but Zheng salvaged a point for the home side.
Japan’s Vissel Kobe will take on former champions Ulsan HD on Wednesday aiming to close the gap on the leaders while Shanghai Shenhua will face off against Kawasaki Frontale.
The first eight finishers in the 12-team league phase in both east and west Asia will advance to the knockout rounds of the revamped continental championship, which will be played in March next year.
The quarter-finals, semi-finals and final will be played in a centralised format in Saudi Arabia in April and May.
(Reporting by Michael Church, Editing by Christian Radnedge)
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