China made history on Monday after booking a place in the final of the Asian Champions Trophy for the first time ever as they defeated Pakistan in the first semifinal of the tournament going on at the Moqi Training Base in China. (Highlights | More Sports News)
After the score was tied at 1-1 in regulation time, Chinese goalkeeper Wang Caiyu stopped all four of Pakistan's shots in the shoot-out to emerge as the hero for the hosts. None of Pakistani players could find the net in the shoot-out while Benhai Chen and Changliang Lin scored for China to set up a 2-0 shoot-out win.
Earlier in the match, a raucous crowd gave the Chinese players full support as they faced a formidable Pakistan. The game started slow with both teams struggling to find space in each other's defence. However, China kept control of the ball and made more attacks than Pakistan.
The second quarter began with Pakistan earning four back-to-back penalty corners. Chinese defence stood out with brilliant rushing as all four of the penalty corners were saved. China then again went back to holding possession and were able to finally break the deadlock in the 18th minute of the match.
China got two penalty corners in the 18th minute and Lu Yuanlin converted the second to hand China the lead as the crowd went into raptures. China continued to make attacks as Pakistan really struggled in the midfield, consistently losing possession.
Pakistan went into the half-time break trailing by one goal but came out in the third quarter determined to even it out. The control of the game shifted from China's hands to Pakistan as the Men In Green kept finding circle entries and threatening the Chinese goal. After a few attempts of deflecting the ball into the goal failed, Pakistan finally found the much-awaited equaliser through Ahmad Nadeem's stick.
Midway through the third quarter, Nadeem struck a superb backhand to beat the the Chinese goalkeeper Wang Caiyu and find the equaliser for Pakistan. China were pushed on the backfoot for the remainder of the third quarter but managed to stop Pakistan from scoring.
The final quarter saw some intense back and forth between the two sides. China defended deep and tried some counter attacks while Pakistan tried best to get one more goal. Both sides put up a really strong defence to deny some crucial opportunities to their opponents in the last quarter. Eventually, the hooter sounded and the match went into shoot-out.
Pakistan switched their goalkeeper from Abdullah Ishtiyaq Khan, who had made some crucial saves, to Muneeb Ur Rahman only for the shoot-out. However, all of their four attempts in the shoot-out were blocked by the Chinese custodian Caiyu. Benhai Chen and Changliang Lin got China 2-0 up in the first two attempts and the last two attempts of both teams failed.
Caiyu, other Chinese players and the crowd at the Moqi Training Base burst into celebrations after the historic win.
