United City delivers first win for PH in AFC Champions League

By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña

History has been made.

Mark Hartmann scored a brace while newly naturalized Filipino Bienvenido Marañon added another goal to put United City FC in the history books as the first PH club to win a match in the AFC Champions League.

The United City booters were in deep trouble after Beijing Guoan FC scored two early goals but the Filipinos came storming back and had one of the most resilient runs in the tournament to finish the match with a 3-0 run, 3-2.

Entering their fifth group stage match with a draw and three losses, the Filipino pack came in with the much-needed urgency to at least close their campaign with positive results.

United City started the game shaky after a couple of defensive miscommunications which the Chinese team capitalized on.

Beijing would cruise to two goals in the first half, a thing United City looked to halt in the next 45 minutes of action.

The PH team tightened their defensive schemes and as they say, “defense first and the offense will just come.”

The outcome was exactly that as the men in yellow flipped the switch offensively including a crucial goal from Hartmann with 10 minutes left in the match.

United City will seek to have a back-to-back closer in the tournament as they are set for a rematch against Daegu FC who stomped them in their first meeting, 7-0.