Match Report
The table gap was wide: 27 points between Qingdao Youth Island (9th, 48 pts) and Xinjiang Tianshan (17th, 21 pts). Qingdao West Coast had been over-performing their table position on recent form: 4th in the league over the last five rounds against 9th overall. Per game in the league, Qingdao Youth Island were scoring 1.38 and conceding 1.29, Xinjiang Tianshan 0.91 and 2.44, against a competition average of 1.31 goals per team per game.
Defeat had followed defeat for Xinjiang Tianshan — three in succession. The five-game form split read 7/15 points for Qingdao Youth Island against 1/15 for Xinjiang Tianshan.
With 17 matches recorded and 1.4 yellow cards per game, Y. Zhang was the man in the middle. The match was played at Kangqiao Football Base in Shanghai (capacity 33,572). On the scoreboard, it was 1-1 at the break; 1 second-half goal set the final 2-1.