Everton Camargo penalty saves Hong Kong in ill-tempered clash with 9-man Guangdong

Everton Camargo’s second half penalty salvaged a 2-2 draw for Hong Kong in an ill-tempered affair against Guangdong on Sunday, with the visitors ending the game with nine men.

Camargo’s 67th minute strike came either side of red cards for goalscorer Chen Wei and Huang Zishun, who had both already been booked in the first half of the fractious Hong Kong-Guangdong Cup encounter.

Hong Kong had taken the lead through Sun Ming-him’s wonder strike at the end of the first half, only to lose it in the space of 10 second-half minutes. Guangdong then lost their heads, and Camargo kept his, allowing new interim head coach Roberto Losada to end his first game in charge on level terms, not that he was happy about it.

“It’s not the result I would like, of course I would like to win, but it’s the result I have, so I have to accept it, and we have to go for the next one,” Losada said.

“I think we made wrong choices in the last third part of the pitch. Maybe we crossed too much from a position that we don’t have advantage. It’s easy for the defenders. We should choose differently and probably we will have more chances. But they tried. Some of them were tired and so on. But we tried.”

Despite just 7,703 fans turning up at Hong Kong Stadium, the home supporters filled three blocks of seats along one touchline, ensuring there was some advantage for Losada’s men.