Yesterday I had the chance to go to watch the 3rd/4th place playoff and the final of the Lunar New Year Cup in Hong Kong Stadium. This was my first time to the stadium and it was actually quite nice. I also found out that student tickets for soccer matches here in Hong Kong are dirt cheap and the seats aren’t that bad. It was only 40 HKD (or about 5 US dollars) for not one, but two matches. Well of course the teams aren’t all that amazing but still, it’s definitely professional soccer.
Just got into the stadium and it’s empty.
The first game was the 3rd/4th place playoff between Hong Kong League XI (comprising of players from the teams in the HK League), which was more like a United Africa team because the only Hong Kong person in the team was the goalkeeper (he’s quite good). As for Australia, it obviously wasn’t their World Cup team but they did manage quite well nonetheless. In the first few minutes of the game, the HK fans were wild, banging their “pong bong sticks” like crazy. They kept booing the Aussies and a few teenagers sitting next to me kept calling for an own goal whenever the Australian goalkeeper got the ball. But after the Aussies scored their first goal, the HK fans shut up and started focusing more on the game.
A nice save by the Aussie goalkeeper.
Australia’s first goal wasn’t that spectacular, some player on the right shot and it came of the keeper giving another player an easy tap in for a goal. I don’t really remember what happened in the other goal of Australia but I believe someone shot and the keeper did touch it but it was just too powerful and went in. Once again, I don’t remember Hong Kong’s first goal but their second was a penalty which was nicely converted to a goal by Gumbs.
Hong Kong’s corner kick at some point in the game.
So the score was 2-2 and there was no such thing as extra time in this game so it went straight on into penalties. The Aussies won 7-5 in penalties and became 3rd in the Lunar New Year Cup.
I was unfortunately unable to finish watching the Final between China and Jamaica because I was called home but I heard from my friends that Jamaica won on penalties.
This Chinese fan has a lot of pride in his country.
The missed penalty that lost China the final.
I must say that Hong Kong stadium definitely is a great place to watch sporting events and the fans aren’t all that bad. Hopefully I’ll be going there for the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens in the end of March.
P.S. And of course more photos at Flickr. Unfortunately the photos aren’t in a set so if I upload more later you’ll have to search for them but I’m hoping to upgrade to a Flickr Pro accounts sometime soon.
Tags: football, hong kong, lunar new year cup, soccer
illya! i found it! yeah that game was awesome. The jamaicans were def my fav. but yeah, the australians were hot and the chinese were not. it was a good day.