Sichuan Jiuniu and Zhejiang Professional played out a 1-1 draw in the Super League's twenty-fourth round on Saturday. The result keeps both sides hovering in the lower half of the table, with the home side eleven points behind the leaders and the visitors one place above them.
It was a match decided by two goals in the second half. Dalong Xia put the hosts ahead in the fifty-eighth minute, but Felippe Cardoso responded for the visitors after the hour mark. By then the game had settled into a rhythm, and neither side could find a winner.
Zhejiang controlled possession at fifty-seven per cent to forty-three, but the shots told a similar story. The visitors registered five shots on target compared to four for the hosts, though both sides failed to convert the majority of their efforts.
There were four yellow cards in total, two for each side. Rui Yu and Zhang Yufeng went off the bench for Sichuan, while Xu Junchi and R. Neilson collected cards for the visitors. The substitutions came thick and fast in the closing stages, with Sichuan making three changes after the eightieth minute alone.
And here's the thing — the statistics don't tell you much about the character of the game. Both teams created roughly equal chances, and the goal difference between them remains one point. That is where the real story lies.