Nigerian veteran, Obafemi Martins, scored a cracker as Shanghai Shenhua stunned rivals Shanghai SIPG to win the Chinese FA Cup final on away goals 3-3 on aggregate on Sunday.
They did it in thrilling fashion and without Argentine forward, Carlos Tevez, whose disastrous 11-month spell in China looks to be over after he failed to appear in either leg of the final.
Shenhua went into the two-legged tie as underdogs against an expensively assembled SIPG side featuring the Brazilians Hulk and Oscar, Asia’s most pricey player at 60 million euros.
Portuguese coach Andre Villas-Boas, whose future in China is also unclear having failed to lead SIPG to silverware this season, paid the price for a lack of ambition in the 1-0 first-leg defeat at Shenhua a week earlier — Martins the scorer.
At least SIPG went out fighting, winning 3-2 on an enthralling night at Shanghai Stadium.
Wenjun Lue opened the scoring for Villas-Boas’ men before Yunding Cao levelled proceedings for the visitors on the stroke of halftime.
Eight minutes past the hour mark, Martins gave the visitors the lead for the first time in the tie. The former Inter Milan marksman cut in from the right to curl in a beautiful effort.
Unfazed by the Nigeria international’s beauty, SIPG rallied back with two quick-fire goals through Hulk and an own goal from captain Giovanni Moreno.
But those were not enough to land the Shanghai Stadium outfit their maiden FA Cup honour as Martins’ first leg strike turned out to be the major difference in the tie, thus, handing Shanghai Shenhua a title that had evaded them since 1998.
The former Newcastle United and Wolfsburg striker had a quite prolific season with the Shanghai outfit, scoring seven goals in 1159 minutes from 13 Chinese Super League matches.
