Football
Michael Church, Asia correspondent 7y

Villas-Boas furious after Shanghai SIPG's win vs. Guangzhou Evergrande

Andre Villas-Boas launched a stinging attack on Guangzhou Evergrande and the Asian Fotball Confederation after his side advanced to the semi-finals of the Asian Champions League in dramatic fashion on Tuesday evening.

SIPG crawled over the line to claim a 5-4 penalty shootout win over the two-time champions after previously squandering a 4-0 first-leg advantage as the game went into extra-time and penalties.

The game eventually ended in a 5-5 aggregate draw with SIPG advancing but, despite the win, Villas-Boas was aggrieved at the performance of officials across the two legs of the all-Chinese Super League tie.

"In the last game Fu Huan had a very clean slide tackle which led to his suspension in this match," said the former Chelsea and Porto boss.

"Yan Junling is suspended for the first leg of the semifinal because the referee gave him a yellow card. The referee chose the end of the Guangzhou fans to take the penalties. The referee gives two red cards to our players.

"Zhang Linpeng should be suspended from this game because he used his elbow in the first game and he's not suspended because the committee of ethics and discipline at AFC did not judge an elbow as violent conduct.

"We come here on the bus for this game and the same two cars separately had three accidents in front of us. This is the problem.

"This is the greatest achievement for SIPG ever because it's against a club that is dominating the AFC.

"This club can do everything, they can cause accidents in front of us, they have players who can elbow Elkeson and not be suspended and yet we won. The referee gave our goalkeeper a yellow card during the penalties and this is a disgrace. It's a disgrace.

"This is the biggest victory for SIPG and for these players, who gave everything until the end."

"Evergrande manipulate the AFC," he added. "They can do whatever they want."

Villas-Boas' comments came at the end of a remarkable evening in which Ricardo Goulart and Alan both scored twice during regular time to take the game into an additional 30 minutes.

Hulk's stunning free kick 10 minutes from the end of the second period of extra time looked set to take the visitors through, only Goulart to strike from the penalty spot after Muriqui had been fouled.

That goal took the game into a shootout, where Goulart missed the opening spot kick before Yu Hai hit the winner for SIPG to set up a semifinal against either Urawa Red Diamonds or Kawasaki Frontale.

Guangzhou head coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, meanwhile, praised his team's second leg display after all had seemed lost following the first meeting between the teams in Shanghai last month.

"It is not easy to imagine the stress on a team that has conceded four goals in the first game," he said. "Today, Evergrande have proven that our players are all true men. I have to applaud the Evergrande spirit. I am satisfied with every one of them.

"If I remember correctly, this is the first time in my 30-year career that my team lost four goals in the first round and levelled it back in the second leg.

"This is a very high level competition and both sides showed their qualities. We are competing with SIPG in the Asian Champions League, the Chinese Super League and the Chinese FA Cup. We have witnessed their improvement.

"Today they hung in there until the last and finally they won, which proves their growth."

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