Liverpool Beat South China FC 3-1, Advance To Final

Liverpool will face Portsmouth in the final of the Barclays Asia Trophy after beating South China FC in Hong Kong Stadium this afternoon (our time) by 3-1. Portsmouth had earlier beaten Fulham by a single goal to take the first berth in the final and will face Liverpool this Friday afternoon.

As friendlies go, today’s match was damn good. When you look at crowd numbers, Liverpool played Auxerre last week in front of around 6,000 in Switzerland - today they took on South China in front of a 40,000 capacity crowd.

John Arne Riise opened the scoring first after ten minutes when he unleashed a rocket of a free kick towards the goal from the edge of the box before Xabi Alonso converted a penalty sixteen minutes later after Voronin was judged to have been pulled down. South China’s Li Hiaqiang made a show of Scott Carson from 40-45 yards out when the Chinese captain fired a free kick from the right in to the back of the net.

Liverpool’s third goal came through Daniel Agger who bags his second goal of the pre-season. Agger set Riise free on the left who swung the ball into the box for Kuyt to collect. Rather than have a go himself, Kuyt expertly teed up Agger who followed the action right from the back to blaze into the net and over the South China goal line.

Impressive performances from Andriy Voronin, Dirk Kuyt and Jermaine Pennant (both in the second half) while Xabi Alonso looked well in the first half. Scott Carson almost grabbed another full 90 minutes in goal only to be replaced by David Martin with just over five minutes left in the second half.

Overall, another good pre-season win for Liverpool - omens looking good for this coming season. Hopefully Stevie Gerrard and Fernando Torres will make an appearance on Friday - maybe too will Harry Kewell who surprised everyone (I think) by starting on the pitch this afternoon so soon after the Australian tour. Roll on Friday….

Daniel Agger to riise, kuyt laid back to agger

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