Shanghai Shenhua's 7-1 against Yunnan Yukun is the scoreline everyone will carry into Phnom Penh, but I'd read the squad news before the scoreline. A Sina preview lists three outfield regulars still away on Asian Games call-ups (Zhu Chenjie, Wu Xi, Yang Haoyu), says only three foreign players are available, and names Latang as suspended. My guess, and it is only a guess from the transliteration, is that Latang is Rafael Ratão, who scored three of those seven goals. Svay Rieng's coach has said publicly he won't park the bus against strong sides, so the question is what an open game looks like for a Shenhua team that is rotating.
Shenhua first, from the match records in our DB (the Yunnan result is still marked provisional). They had 32 shots to 10, 16 of them on target and 24 from inside the box, and the foreign line was central: Ratão scored three, and João Carlos Teixeira set up three of the goals (the one by Xie Pengfei, the one by Jin Shunkai and Ratão's first). Teixeira is among the three foreigners listed as available, so some of the supply is intact. What's missing is the man finishing it. The other recent Shenhua pattern is that they don't need the ball: at Chongqing on Sept 6 they had 40% possession, 14 shots each, and won 3-1 with two goals inside the first 11 minutes.
The travel part is easy to overstate, so here is what the preview actually says. The squad flew out on Oct 13, reached the hotel after about 1:30 in the morning, and the team then flies straight from Cambodia to Wuhan for a league game on Oct 18. That is why the same piece expects young players such as Liu Chengyu and Yang Shuai to get another look, as they did in the group opener. Jiang Shenglong and Li Ke are reported fit to travel and train, which may change the back three that started the 2-1 win over Tampines.
Svay Rieng are the part I'm least sure about. The club's last two results in our records are the 0-2 at Machida on Sept 17 and, per the schedule listing (our DB has no score for it), a 0-6 at Johor DT on Oct 8. Their coach, Matthew McConkey, told Kampuchea Thmey that sitting deep to limit the damage against strong teams is not his choice, and that a team has to dare to play its own style. That is a sensible long-term view, and it is also exactly the kind of approach that has produced heavy scores against them. The match is also at the national stadium in Phnom Penh rather than their own ground, per the Sina piece.
So the interlock I'd watch: a Svay Rieng side that wants the ball against a Shenhua side that has shown it can score in the first quarter-hour from very little possession, but with its main finisher missing. If the hosts really do press and play out, the first twenty minutes will tell whether Shenhua's second-choice forwards punish that, or whether the rotation costs them the sharpness the 7-1 had. I wouldn't treat the table positions as the story.
Sources: Sina Sports preview of Oct 14, Kampuchea Thmey coach piece of Oct 15, and the match records in our DB.
