Professional soccer clubs Incheon United and Ulsan Hyundai kept their hopes of advancing to the round of 16 alive with back-to-back victories in their respective Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Champions League (ACL) group stage matches.
Incheon defeated Yokohama Marinos (Japan) 2-1 at home in the fifth match of Group G of the 2023-2024 AFC ACL on Monday at the Incheon Football Stadium.
Ulsan defeated BG Pathum United (Thailand) 3-1 in the fifth match of Group I at Pathum Thani Stadium to remain second in the group with three points.
Incheon, playing in the ACL for the first time in its 20-year history, finished second in the group with three wins and two losses to accumulate nine points.
They followed up their 4-2 victory over Yokohama in the first match of Group G with another win today, making it two wins in a row against the Yokohama.
They have the same number of points as Choi Kang-hee’s first-place Shandong Taishan (China), but have already suffered two losses against Shandong (0-2, 1-3).
Yokohama, who entered the ACL as last season’s J-League champions, fell to third place (9-3, 2-2) after being outclassed by Incheon.
In this season’s AFC group stage, the winner of each of the five East Asian groups (Groups F through J) will qualify for the round of 16, while the three best-performing teams from the second five in each group will punch their ticket to the round of 16.
With Mugosa, Jerso and Mpoku all sidelined with injuries and Hernandez on the substitutes’ bench, Incheon lined up Chun Sung-hoon as the central striker and Kim Bo-seob and 2003-born Park Seung-ho on the wings.
Incheon, who threatened the opponent’s goal from the start of the match with Park Seung-ho’s shot following Kim Bosup’s cross, took the lead in the 11th minute when Hong Si-hoo scored on a counterattack. 무지개토토 도메인
Kim Bo-seop’s cutback from the left flank was met by Chun Sung-hoon with a left-footed volley that was saved by the goalkeeper, and the rebounded ball was collected by Hong Si-hoo with a right-footed volley from the right penalty area to rattle the net.
Incheon held on to the lead with Kim Dong-heon putting on a show of saves, getting a hand to a header from Yokohama Iweru in the seventh minute and tiptoeing away a left-footed shot from Mizunuma Gota in the 36th minute.