THERE WERE FARCICAL scenes on Wednesday as Beijing Renhe ended their 5-0 thrashing at Guangzhou Evergrande with three goalkeepers on the pitch in the Chinese FA Cup fifth round.
The Chinese Super League (CSL) club were accused of effectively throwing the game at Fabio Cannavaro’s Evergrande and are likely to be punished by the Chinese Football Association.
Chinese football fans and media speculated whether Renhe had made football history. Renhe, who are in the relegation places with just over a third of the CSL season gone, named only three substitutes instead of the seven they could have had.
Of those, two were goalkeepers. Renhe, who are coached by the Serbian Aleksandar Stanojevic, started the match with stand-in stopper Mou Pengfei in goal.
This must be a new world record-Renhe just fielded its 3rd(!!) goalkeeper, the second one to play as a striker(!) in the 5th round of the Chinese FA Cup.
— Roy Tadmor (@RoyTLuo) May 29, 2019
Mou Pengfei is the only goal keeper that protects its own goal,where Liu Peng and Li Chen are playing as strikers.
Thanks CFA pic.twitter.com/BxWytwEYNp
On 43 minutes, with the visitors losing 1-0, they brought on a second goalkeeper, Liu Peng. But rather than going in goal, Liu came on as an outfield player in place of injured striker Sun Weizhe.
Cannavaro’s side went 2-0 ahead two minutes later. With less than 10 minutes left in the game and Renhe losing 5-0, they sent on a third goalkeeper as Li Chen came on, also as an outfield player.
Chinese media reacted with fury and accused Renhe of failing to even try and win the game. “Pitiful Chinese football,” said Sina Sports, calling it “a farce”.
Fielding a team of mainly U23 players and naming only three substitutes — two of them goalkeepers — was “the equivalent of giving up the game in advance”, said Sina.
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