Barcelona vs Guangzhou Evergrande preview

Guangzhou Evergrande beat Mexico’s Club America 2-1 on Sunday in the quarterfinal of club soccer’s world championship tournament.

Guangzhou, who have won the Asian Champions League in two of the last three seasons, haven’t lost in 28 competitive games and have already won a quarter final tie in the Club World Cup to set up the date with Barcelona.

“I’m well aware that it will be hard, but after winning the Chinese Super League and the AFC Champions League, we can be optimistic”, Scolari said in an interview on Saturday, Dec. 12.

Club America’s journey at the 2015 FIFA Club World Cup will be short but not sweet.

The tournament that features the champion clubs from the continental confederations has now been whittled down to four with favourites Barcelona taking on Chinese side Guangzhou Evergrande on Thursday in Yokohama.

Veteran striker Oribe Peralta ended Guangzhou’s stubborn resistance with a diving header five minutes after the break, only for substitute Zheng Long to equalise against the run of play for Luiz Felipe Scolari’s side with 10 minutes left.

Making the transition easier for Scolari is the fact that Guangzhou has five Brazilian players.

“Guangzhou should finish higher than we did last time around”, said Scolari. Despite this, Scolari is proud of his domestic players. We’re going to give everything we have in the competition, beginning with the meeting against our Mexican opponents on Sunday.

“Our Chinese players are good and several of them would be able to play in European leagues”, Scolari said. “I have to dream and make the players believe that they can do it. Why not dream, why not believe we can beat Barcelona?” The Spanish midfielder said: “We’re only focusing on this competition now”.