Football
Michael Church, Asia correspondent 6y

Guangzhou Evergrande beat Yanbian Funde in thriller as Liu Jiang scores late

Defender Liu Jiang capped a dramatic finale as Guangzhou Evergrande defeated Yanbian Funde 4-3 by scoring the winner two minutes into injury time as Luiz Felipe Scolari's side kept their Chinese Super League title defence on track.

The win was the first in three matches for Evergrande, who extend their lead over second-placed Shanghai SIPG to seven points with three games remaining for the six-time defending champions. SIPG play last-placed Liaoning Whowin on Saturday.

"Yanbian come here fighting to stay alive in the Chinese Super League, so they were playing with everything they have," said Liu, who opened and closed the scoring for a Guangzhou side that won despite Bubacarr Trawally's hat-trick for Yanbian.

"Even though we won, we made a lot of mistakes throughout the game. I had my share, including when we conceded one of the goals, but overall we were the better side.

"Before the game we studied videos of Trawally because he scored three times in their match against Beijing. Today, Feng Xiaoting and I were both marking him but he still scored three times and I have to take some responsibility for that.

"But I have to thank my team mates for being able to score the final goal because they created the conditions for me to do so."

Liu put Guangzhou in front after just 14 minutes when he headed in Li Xuepeng's corner from close range but Trawally levelled 17 minutes later when he slotted into the bottom corner after wrong-footing Liu.

The Gambian striker then put Yanbian in front six minutes after the restart with a side-foot volley before an own goal by Han Guanghui tied the scores again and Muriqui's 88th minute goal looked set to give Guangzhou all three points.

But Trawally claimed his hat trick as the 90 minutes were completed with a fine finish from the tightest of angles only for Liu to score from Zheng Long's corner two minutes into injury time to give Guangzhou a much-needed win.

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