傑志無懼作客廣州環境，上下一心反敗為勝

Arguably one of the toughest premier league fixtures for Kitchee in the first-half of the current season, the Blues made the long trek to Guangzhou on Saturday afternoon to take on premier league rival R&F. Despite falling behind early in the game, Kitchee buckled down and snatched a sensational 3:1 come-from-behind victory against the mainland side. Although missing Lucas Da Silva and Kim Bong Jin through injuries, Kitchee maintained a firm grip on the match in the first-half, yet it was R&F that managed to draw first blood through a spectacular long-range strike from Hou Junjie. Afterwards, the Blues turned it up a notch, pressed for the equalizer and tied the game right before half-time through an Alessandro Leonardo penalty-shot. Kitchee continued to dominate proceedings in the second-half but seemed to have trouble breaking down R&F’s stubborn defense. However, the Blues finally broke the deadlock late in the game through an opportunistic strike from Jared Lum. Fernando Pedreira managed to seal the victory for Kitchee with a late goal deep in stoppage time, sending the travelling Kitchee supporters home in frenzy. Temporarily in-charge of Kitchee due to head coach Alex Chu’s prior commitment to a coaching course, Roberto Losada was satisfied with the team’s overall performance shown during the come-back victory. “We knew this was going to be a tough game but the players largely executed the game-plan that we had come up with, therefore I have to be quite satisfied with the team’s overall performance,” expressed the long-time member of the Kitchee backroom. “Although Coach Chu (Kitchee head coach Alex Chu) was absent from the game, he did manage to sit down with Cristiano (Kitchee deputy head coach – defense) and myself ahead of the trip and came up with a thorough game-plan for this game, therefore our match preparation was not affected at all.” Midfielder Lam Zhi Gin indicated the match venue gave R&F an advantage on defensive setups but credited his teammates for buckling down and coming up with all three points. “The pitch was quite narrow and that made it easy for R&F to pack the back and stayed defensive,” Lam offered. “Despite conceding an early goal, we still controlled the match, created a lot of crosses from both flanks and finally tied the game before half-time, eventually scoring the goals late in the second-half to snatch the victory. Overall, it was a difficult game for us but it also demonstrated our burning desire to fight for a result.”