As many as four ASEAN Club Championship Shopee Cup™ clubs were in action in various Asian Football Confederation (AFC) club competitions this week in their knockout stage first -eg matches.
Cambodia’s PKR Svay Rieng FC have the upper hand after a big AFC Challenge League win at home against Myanmar’s Shan United FC, Buriram United of Thailand held Malaysian champions Johor Darul Ta’zim to a goalless draw in the AFC Champions League Elite while Singapore’s Lion City Sailors FC suffered a heavy defeat away to Sanfrecce Hiroshima in the AFC Champions League Two.
ASEAN United FC takes a look at how the four Shopee Cup clubs performed over the course of this week.
Svay Rieng turn on the style
It was a clash between two Shopee Cup sides when Cambodian champions Svay Rieng met Myanmar National League champions Shan United in the AFC Challenge League quarter-final first leg.
Both teams had progressed to the inaugural Shopee Cup group stage after successfully navigating their playoff matches and were placed together in Group A. Svay Rieng beat Shan United 4-2 in the final Shopee Cup group stage matchday and Thursday’s meeting was no different.
With the match being played at the beautiful Morodok Techo National Stadium, Svay Rieng dominated right from the start with Cristian Roque’s 17th-minute penalty opening the scoring, and the Brazilian forward then went on to complete his hat-trick in the second half to wrap up an emphatic 6-2 victory in the first leg and condemn Shan United to their second defeat in as many months.
Buriram left to rue missed chances
Elsewhere, in the AFC Champions League Elite it was another all-ASEAN matchup when Thai champions Buriram locked horns with Malaysian champions JDT in the Round of 16 first leg.
Buriram had the better of the chances for the entirety of the match but couldn’t make them count with Suphanat Mueanta's 65th-minute header, which was brilliantly kept out by Andoni Zubiaurre, the closest they came to breaking the deadlock.
Ultimately, it finished 0-0 in the first leg with Buriram now facing the stern test of having to get a result away at the Sultan Ibrahim Stadium in Johor Bahru when both sides meet for the return leg in a week’s time.
Sailors no match for Sanfrecce
And finally, in the AFC Champions League Two quarter-final first leg, Singaporean side Lion City were outclassed 6-1 by Japanese giants Sanfrecce at the Edion Peace Wing Hiroshima on Wednesday.
As many as five different scorers found the back of the net for the J.League side with the Sailors’ only silver lining in Hiroshima being Shawal Anuar’s first-half strike in which the Sailors perfectly executed a counter-attack.
Photo: PKR Svay Rieng FC
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