{"id":21630,"date":"2025-10-02T15:04:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T15:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=21630"},"modified":"2025-10-02T15:04:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T15:04:17","slug":"vissel-kobe-keep-perfect-start-in-acl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=21630","title":{"rendered":"Vissel Kobe keep perfect start in ACL"},"content":{"rendered":"
Japan’s Vissel Kobe maintained their perfect start to the Asian Champions League Elite group phase on Wednesday when Koya Yuruki scored a stoppage-time winner to secure a 1-0 victory over visitors Melbourne City.<\/p>\n

Yuruki’s 94th-minute strike came following a mix-up in the Melbourne defence, which failed to deal with a long clearance from goalkeeper Shuichi Gonda and allowed the midfielder to roll the ball into the empty net.<\/p>\n

“I think for the majority of the game we were in it, we were doing well and up until the minute we conceded the goal we were competing well,” said Melbourne City captain Aziz Behich.<\/p>\n

“I’m proud of my players. They competed for more than 90 minutes and it just hurts the way we conceded that goal in the last minute.”<\/p>\n

Melbourne City are without a point after the first two rounds in the league phase while Kobe have a maximum six points and lead the standings.<\/p>\n

The J-League champions hold a two-point advantage over three teams, including twice winners Ulsan HD from South Korea, who drew 1-1 with Shanghai Shenhua in China on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Luis Asue gave Leonid Slutsky’s Chinese Super League side the lead three minutes into the second half when he swept a first-time strike past Jo Hyeon-woo after Joao Teixeira’s deflected cross had looped up into his path.<\/p>\n

But 15 minutes later Ulsan, who defeated Chengdu Rongcheng in their opener in the competition, responded when Gustav Ludwigson steered a side-footed volley into the bottom corner of Xue Winghao’s goal.<\/p>\n

Japan’s Sanfrecce Hiroshima and FC Seoul from South Korea are also on four points with Gangwon FC, Chengdu Rongcheng and Buriram United a further point behind.<\/p>\n

The first eight finishers in the 12-team league phase in both west and east Asia will advance to the knockout rounds, which begin in March.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Japan’s Vissel Kobe maintained their perfect start to the Asian Champions League Elite group phase on Wednesday when Koya Yuruki scored a stoppage-time winner to secure a 1-0 victory over visitors Melbourne City. Yuruki’s 94th-minute strike came following a mix-up in the Melbourne defence, which failed to deal with a long clearance from goalkeeper Shuichi […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21630\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}