Yokohama beat toothless Shanghai Port in Champions League last 16 / Photo: © AFP
Yokohama beat toothless Shanghai Port in Champions League last 16
Brazilian forward Anderson Lopes scored the only goal as last year's runners-up Yokohama F-Marinos squeezed past Shanghai Port 1-0 away in the first leg of their Asian Champions League last 16 clash Tuesday.
Chinese Super League champions Shanghai were largely toothless, their best chance coming midway through the second half when substitute Li Shuai thumped the ball against the post.
Coached by Gareth Southgate's former England assistant Steve Holland, Yokohama will be strong favourites to reach the quarter-finals of Asia's top club competition with the home leg to come next week.
The first half at Shanghai's purpose-built Pudong Football Stadium was scrappy with few chances and several injury stoppages.
Home defender Fu Huan lasted just 10 minutes before Shanghai's Australian coach Kevin Muscat, the former Yokohama boss, was forced into a change.
Three Shanghai players were booked in a first period in which the hosts had more of the ball, without really threatening.
Yokohama went ahead on the half hour thanks to some poor defending from Muscat's men, who attempted to clear the ball but succeeded only in inadvertently setting up Lopes for a simple close-range header.
It was the 31-year-old captain's seventh goal in the competition this term.
The visitors turned the screw in the second half and should have gone up 2-0 on the hour but Brazilian Yan Matheus was denied by the legs of goalkeeper Yan Junling, who also denied Lopes in the closing minutes.
Later Tuesday, also in the East zone of the Champions League, Thailand's Buriram United host Johor Darul Ta'zim of Malaysia.
In the West zone, four-time Asian champions Al Hilal of Saudi Arabia travel to Uzbekistan to face Pakhtakor.
Another Saudi side, Al Ahli, are at Qatar's Al Rayyan.
T.Bailey--TNT
Featured