Evergrande falls 4-2 in Champions League game

JEDDAH, Saudi Araba - Guangzhou Evergrande coach Marcello Lippi's coaching career would be on edge of jeopardy for the first time ever since he arrived Guangzhou in May.

Lucas Barrios (18) of Guangzhou Evergrande fights for the ball with Naif Hazazi (9) of Al Ittihad during the first leg of their AFC Champions League quarterfinal in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Sept 19, 2012. Al Ittihad rallied from one goal behind to stun Evergrande 4-2 in the match. [Photo/Xinhua]

The Italian coach's side suffered an upsetting 4-2 defeat against Saudi sides Al Ittihad at the first leg of quarter finals in AFC champions league here on Wednesday night.

Two headers from Saudi international Naif Hazazi in the final 28 minutes gifted a thrilling comeback to the two times AFC Champions League winner after Guangzhou had twice taken the lead through Gao Lin and Huang Bowen.

"We started with a lot of aggressive plays, Itti had changed their formation what I felt surprise about it," Lippi said at the press conference after the match.

Gao Lin opened the scoring with a valley for Guangzhou in the 27th minutes, only to see Diego Da Souza equalized 1 minute later.

Al Ittihad levelled again as Mohammed Noor netted a penalty in the beginning of the second half after Huang Bowen's long shot gifted the away team lead before the half break.

Missing two key defensive players Zhang Linpeng and Zhao Xuri due to suspension, Lippi had to choose one from Feng Xiaoting and Tang Dechao who had not been fully recovered from long-time injury.

"I had to choose one center defender from two injured players, actually, we had no other choices," the 64-year-old said.

However, the only choice for Lippi turned out to be a disaster for the Chinese Super League champions. Several fatal mistakes was made by Feng Xiaoting, who was the first to blame at all three goals Guangzhou conceded in the second half.

The Italian's bigger worry maybe the injury of the team's top scorer Muriqui, who scored and build up more than half of goals Guangzhou scored this season.

"Bad news today we also lost Muriqui, it was a very very serious injury," Lippi said.

What's worse, with this bitter defeat, Guangzhou has entered a set of gruelling matches as they would play 5 games in next 17 days.

They are on their way to defend the league champions and go after the CFA cup and AFC champions league title.

Every title seems in hope, but one mistake could lead to collapse.

"It is the toughest test ever for the World Cup champions coach since he came to China, if he failed to achieve one title, the owner would not be so patient who fired former coach Lee Jang-Soo surprisingly before Lippi came," Bai Guohua, a senior Chinese football reporter remarked.