
Sriwijaya 4-2 Shandong Luneng
Sriwijaya scored four times in the second half to stun Shandong Luneng and eliminate them from the Asian Champions League.
After South Korea's FC Seoul earlier beat group winners Gamba Osaka 2-1 in Japan, Shandong knew they had to beat Sriwijaya, who had failed to collect a point in their previous five Group F games, at the Jaka Baring Stadium to advance to the last 16.
And after surviving early pressure from the home side, Shandong looked on course to set up a meeting with Kashima Antlers in the one-off second round in Japan on June 24 after Han Peng and Gao Di scored at the end of the first half.
Han opened the scoring three minutes before the break after skipper Jiao Zhe stepped over Li Wei's low cross on the edge of the area and the striker swivelled and fired low across Sriwijaya goalkeeper Feri Rotinsulu and into the bottom corner.
The visitors doubled their lead a minute later as Gao gambled on a long ball forward, beat Mohammad Mauly Lessy to the knockdown from Han before calmly clipping his effort underneath the advancing Rotinsulu.
Sriwijaya had scored only three goals and conceded 22 in losing their previous five games and captain Keith Gumbs struck what appeared to be a consolation for Sriwijaya eight minutes after the break as the St Kitts striker surged forward, skipped round the advancing goalkeeper and turned the ball across the line just in time as two defenders attempted to cover.
But after 73 minutes Zah Rahan Krangar collected a pass inside the area and shot across goal and despite Shandong goalkeeper Li Leilei managing to get a hand to the low strike, it had too much power and found the bottom corner to level the contest and leave the visitors stunned.
Worse was to come for Shandong seven minutes later as the visiting defence failed to deal with a ball inside the area and it broke for Liberian midfielder Krangar on the edge of the six-yard area and he had the simplest of tasks of firing high into the empty net.
And with three minutes remaining Muhammad Nasuha sealed the stunning win as he rifled past Li from inside the area to send Seoul through to meet the Antlers next month for a place in the quarter-finals and leave Shandong shell-shocked.
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