The 2007 Premier League Asia Trophy (

Traditional chinese A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays ...

: 巴克萊亞洲錦標賽) was the third edition of the

Premier League Asia Trophy The Premier League Asia Trophy (formerly the FA Premier League Asia Cup) is a biennial pre-season association football friendly tournament in Asia. The two-day competition was inaugurated in 2003 and is "the only Premier League-affiliated comp ...

, a four-team

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

tournament held every two years. The tournament was held in Hong Kong. The 2007 edition was competed by

South China AA South China Athletic Association (known simply as South China, SCAA, ) is a Hong Kong professional football club that competes in the Hong Kong First Division, the second-tier league in Hong Kong football league system. The club is histori ...

, the winner of Hong Kong's

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

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Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

and Fulham at the 40,000-capacity

Hong Kong Stadium Hong Kong Stadium is the main sports venue of Hong Kong. Redeveloped from the old Government Stadium, it reopened as Hong Kong Stadium in March 1994. It has a maximum seating capacity of 40,000, including 18,260 at the main level, 3,173 at exec ...

. The semi-finals took place on 24 July and the final and third-place play-off were on 27 July 2007.

won the first semi-final 1–0 against Fulham after a goal by Benjani in the 45th minute.

beat South China in the second semi-final thanks to a

John Arne Riise John Arne Semundseth Riise (born 24 September 1980) is a Norwegian professional football manager and former player who played as a left back and a left midfielder. He is currently the manager of Toppserien club Avaldsnes. With 110 caps, Rii ...

free-kick and a

Xabi Alonso Xabier Alonso Olano (, ; born 25 November 1981) is a Spanish football coach and former professional player who is currently the head coach of Bundesliga club Bayer Leverkusen. Alonso began his career at Real Sociedad, the main team of his h ...

penalty. South China pulled a goal back with a

Li Haiqiang Li Haiqiang () is a former Chinese-born Hong Kong professional footballer. He played for various professional clubs and also the Hong Kong national football team. Li played the role of a midfielder and is nicknamed "The Golden Left Foot" be ...

free-kick, but Daniel Agger scored to make it 3–1. Fulham beat South China 4–1 in the third place play-off, while Portsmouth beat Liverpool 4–2 on penalties to win the Premier League Asia Trophy after a goalless draw in normal time.

Competition format

The competition used a knock-out format. South China played Liverpool, while Fulham played Portsmouth, both matches taking place on 24 July. The winners competed in the final on 27 July, while the losers played in the third place play-off on the same day.

Prizes

Hong Kong FA Cup winner South China received HK$500,000 from the organizers as appearance fee in the tournament. The winner of the tournament received a trophy as well as £100,000 prize money.

Official match programme

An A5 sized, 60-page bilingual (English/Chinese) official match programme was published for sale during the match days within the stadium. It retailed at HK$20 (~£1.30).

Results

Semi-finals

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Third place play-off

Final

Goalscorers

The goal scorers from the Premier League Asia Trophy 2007 are as follows:

Player of the Tournament

The Player of the Tournament award was awarded to David James of

. James kept 2 clean sheets, and saved penalties from Yossi Benayoun and Fernando Torres.

Gallery

Image:07BarclaysAsiaTrophy01.jpg Image:07BarclaysAsiaTrophy02.jpg Image:07BarclaysAsiaTrophy03.jpg Image:07BarclaysAsiaTrophy04 (large).jpg

External links

Barclays and Premier League head east

Premiership trio set for Hong Kong Trophy
{{Friendly tournaments 2007 2007 Prem 2007

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

fi:Premier League Asia Trophy