{"id":10269,"date":"2017-11-26T21:00:14","date_gmt":"2017-11-26T21:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disnaija.com\/?p=10269"},"modified":"2017-11-27T21:33:47","modified_gmt":"2017-11-27T21:33:47","slug":"obafemi-martins-scores-as-shanghai-shenhua-wins-china-fa-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/obafemi-martins-scores-as-shanghai-shenhua-wins-china-fa-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"Obafemi Martins Scores As Shanghai Shenhua Wins China FA Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nigerian veteran striker Obafemi Martins scored a cracker as Shanghai Shenhua stunned rivals Shanghai SIPG to win the Chinese FA Cup final on away goals 3-3 on aggregate on Sunday.<\/p>\n

They did it in thrilling fashion and without Argentine forward Carlos Tevez, whose disastrous 11-month spell in China looks to be over after he failed to appear in either leg of the final.<\/p>\n

Shenhua went into the two-legged tie as underdogs against an expensively assembled SIPG side featuring the Brazilians Hulk and Oscar, Asia\u2019s most expensive player at 60 million euros.<\/p>\n

But Portuguese coach Andre Villas-Boas, whose future in China is also unclear having failed to lead SIPG to silverware this season, paid the price for a lack of ambition in the 1-0 first-leg defeat at Shenhua a week earlier \u2014 Martins the scorer.<\/p>\n

At least SIPG went out fighting on an enthralling night at Shanghai Stadium.<\/p>\n

Hulk and international winger Wu Lei both tested out the away goal and on 15 minutes SIPG took the lead.<\/p>\n

Oscar crossed and Lu Wenjun was on hand at the far post to steer the ball back across goal.<\/p>\n

Both sides had half-chances and three minutes before the break a moment of controversy.<\/p>\n

Shenhua, with former manager Gus Poyet watching from the stands, thought they had scored through Cao Yunding.<\/p>\n

The away players wheeled away in celebration, failing to spot that the referee had blown up for an infringement by Martins.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old forward had given the side now coached by Wu Jingui a slender lead from the first leg, but he was adjudged to have impeded SIPG goalkeeper Yan Junling.<\/p>\n

But on the stroke of half-time Shenhua did score and it was Cao again, swivelling inside the box to fire the ball past Yun for 1-1 on the night and 2-1 on aggregate.<\/p>\n

Martins, once of Newcastle United and Inter Milan, looked to have won the tie when he cut in from the right and curled the ball beautifully into the top corner.<\/p>\n

But Hulk buried a penalty four minutes later, then on 76 minutes SIPG took the lead on the night 3-2 when Shenhua captain Giovanni Moreno put the ball into his own net, setting up a frenetic finale.<\/p>\n

It was Shenhua\u2019s first FA Cup triumph since 1998.<\/p>\n

Sourced From: SoccerNet NG: Football News and Articles<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nigerian veteran striker Obafemi Martins scored a cracker as Shanghai Shenhua stunned rivals Shanghai SIPG to win the Chinese FA Cup final on away goals 3-3 on aggregate on Sunday. They did it in thrilling fashion and without Argentine forward Carlos Tevez, whose disastrous 11-month spell in China looks to be over after he failed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9508],"tags":[565,5534,9896,1330,9857,9858],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10269"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}