Melbourne Victory’s Asian Champions League hopes are dangling by a thread as they travel to China to take on perhaps Asia’s most dominant team of the past decade, Guangzhou Evergrande.

Kevin Muscat has made the worst out of a forgiving group after consecutive losses to South Korea’s Daegu FC and Japanese representatives Sanfrecce Hiroshima. Now, they must take down the 2013 and 2015 ACL champions for any remote chance of getting out of the group.

To make matters worse, Guangzhou have shown no signs of slowing down domestically, winning their first four matches of the season without even conceding a goal. An upset loss to Daegu in the previous round will mean that they will be out with vengeance for the coming match.

2018 Season

For the first time in eight years, Guangzhou failed to win the Chinese Super League as they were condemned to a second place finish. The third-last match ended up being the title decider against contenders Shanghai SIPG. The perennial champions lost to their rivals in a thrilling 5-4 encounter.

They did not perform much better in the Asian Champions League, after initially going undefeated and topping their group, they were knocked out by another of their fellow Chinese rivals in Tianjin Quanjan in the round of 16 as they fell short on away goals.

If it couldn’t get any worse for them, they were also humiliated in the Chinese FA Cup as they were not even able to make it to the quarter-finals stage, losing out in the fifth round to Guizhou Hengfeng, the team that was comfortably the worst in the CSL last season.

Managed by Italian World Cup winner Fabio Cannovaro — who is in fact in his second stint as head coach of Guangzhou — there is a great deal of pressure to make amends for the failures of last season. The board will surely be expecting at least one title from this season for it to be deemed anything close to a success and after three years of not winning the ACL, the fans crave Asian dominance once more.

Player to watch out for

Chinese football’s never-ending wads of cash mean that they are able to attract the very best stars to their team. Guangzhou’s danger-man is one that European football followers will be familiar with; the former Barcelona man Paulinho.

Paulinho was a surprising success during his stint with the La Liga Champions, but having returned to Guangzhou — he also represented them from 2015 to 2017 — he is now taking his mantle back as possibly the best player in China.

The Brazilian only joined Evergrande halfway through the season, yet still, in his 19 appearances he directly contributed to 19 goals either through an assist or scoring himself.

It goes without saying, this is a phenomenal return for a midfielder, and highlights the brilliance of Paulinho, who is in a league of his own.

Melbourne Victory manager Kevin Muscat will certainly have his work cut out for him to figure out a way to make sure the box-to-box midfielder is kept as quiet as possibly can be.

Tactical overview

Guangzhou are the most prolific, ruthless and threatening team when attacking. Goals are almost guaranteed once the players step on the field.

It may be hard to believe, but they scored 82 goals in 30 games, which is a rate of 2.73 goals per match. Imagine going into a match knowing your opponents are almost guaranteed nearly three goals.

That’s what Melbourne Victory are up against.

Evergrande are strong in almost every regard, from set pieces to quick ball movement, they can score from any situation. Truth be told, the best way to keep Evergrande from scoring is probably to sit back deep and look to counter.

Another way to beat them though, is by fighting fire with fire. Although they have one of the best defences in the league, there are clear avenues to exploit when attacking.

Guangzhou dominate possession and when they don’t have the ball, everyone from the forwards to the defenders fight tooth and nail to win it back. That’s why they have the lowest passes per defensive action (PPDA) in the attacking third, which means that the forwards limit the number of passes their opponents make by trying to steal the ball as quickly as possible in the opposition’s half.

The way to beat this then, is to move the ball from back to front as quick as possible. Guangzhou play with a high defensive line to compact the field and suffocate opponent midfielders, but it also gives ample space to put balls in behind them.

This strategy relies on defenders being adept at piercing the opposition defence from deep with long balls. So the likes of Thomas Deng and Leigh Broxham, Victory’s starting centre-backs, will have to be on their absolute A-Game if they are to threaten the Chinese supergiants.

With emerging talent Elvis Kamsoba, experienced forward Kosta Barborouses and possibly Kenny Athiu from the bench, the Melbourne side have pace in spades. They just need the right bit of service to make it count.

Miscellaneous facts

Fabio Cannovaro’s side take the most shots in per match, averaging 15.64, comfortably the highest in the league in 2018. They don’t sacrifice quality for quantity though, because their shots are still deadly accurate, with 40.71% of them still hitting the target, the second most in China.

Guangzhou have the oldest averaged age squad in the Chinese Super League at 29. Cannovaro clearly prefers experience and reliability to the volatility that youthful talents are known for.

Evergrande have so far scored 7 goals in their four matches without conceding once in the Chinese Super League.

Follow me on Twitter @ShababHossain13

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