Lo Chi-an fired Taiwan on their way to a 2-0 victory over Guam in the Peace Cup in Manila, the Philippines, yesterday afternoon.
Guam, nine places lower than Taiwan in FIFA’s world rankings at No. 185, began the match on top in front of about 200 spectators at the Rizal Memorial Stadium and they had a glorious chance in the first minute of the game.
Christian Schweizer crossed from the left for Jason Cunliffe, but the experienced striker put the chance wide of Pan Wen-chieh’s goal.
However, against the run of play, Taiwan, playing a changed 4-1-3-2 formation, opened the scoring in the 11th minute, when Lee Pin-hsien played a through ball for Lo Chin-an, who found himself free in the six-yard box with only the Guam goalkeeper to beat to put his team 1-0 ahead.
Lo was combining well with his brother and the scorer of Taiwan’s first goal against Macau on Tuesday, Lo Chi-en, and once Taiwan had the lead they put in a much better performance than in their opener, as a lethargic Guam team failed to keep up with their fitter, stronger opponents.
Chang Han had a great chance to make it 2-0, but he shot straight at Guam goalkeeper Douglas Herrick.
Just before halftime, Taiwan doubled their lead through a fortuitous own-goal.
Chen Po-hao crossed low from the left and the ball spooned off Guam defender Scott Guerrero and over Herrick into the net.
After the break, Herrick almost gifted Taiwan a third when he took a poor touch that almost went to Chang, but the goalkeeper slid in to divert the ball away from goal.
Taiwan then shut the game down and reduced Guam to long-range efforts, with Guam’s Marcus Lopez coming closest when he shot straight at Pan.
Taiwan coach Chiang Mu-tsai said that it could have been a different result on another day.
“We watched the Philippines versus Guam game and thought Guam were a good team. Today we got fortunate,” he told the Peace Cup Web site.
In the evening match, Denis Wolf scored a hat-trick as hosts the Philippines defeated Macau 5-0, the other goals coming from Patrick Reichelt and Carlos Martinez de Murga.
That set up a decider tomorrow at 7:30pm, when the Philippines host Taiwan in the final match of the competition.
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