Painful encounter: JDT’s Murilo De Araujo Santos (right) and Shanghai Shenhua’s Fei Nanduo collide during a tussle for the ball during their Asian Champions League Elite match at the Sultan Ibrahim Stadium in Iskandar Puteri on Tuesday. — Bernama
KUALA LUMPUR: Shanghai Shenhua coach Leonid Slutskiy blamed the tight schedule in the Chinese Super League (CSL) as one of the causes of their 0-3 defeat to Johor Darul Ta’zim (JDT) in the Asian Champions League Elite (ACLE) at the Sultan Ibrahim Stadium in Iskandar Puteri.
The Russian-born manager said that his team had to play six games in 18 days but also admitted his tactics were not effective and lauded JDT as the deserving winners on Tuesday.
“Unfortunately for us, our opponents deserve to win. We need to be competitive in this tournament but the players were not playing in optimal condition due to the tight schedule,” he said.
“If we had been in good physical condition, we probably wouldn’t have lost.
“Once the match started, we did not play well and were slow to act and allowed JDT to dominate the game.
“We gave them too much space, especially the No. 42 (Arif Aiman Hanapi) who was free to move.
“We see in the preparation for the Asian elite competition, JDT seem to have two teams – one for the ACLE competition and the other for the local league competition, while we only depend on one team for all competitions.
Slutskiy added that JDT also had no problem rotating players when certain players get tired.
“JDT can replace up to 11 players who play in the Super League for the ACLE. That’s the difference between us and JDT but I accept the defeat and will try to bounce back in the next game,” he said.
Shanghai Shenhua will next take on Japan’s Kawasaki Frontale in Shanghai on Oct 23.
