Hong Kong were unable to break their four-year losing streak in the annual Interport Cup last night, but Sebastiao Araujo's compact team were by no means disgraced in a 1-0 defeat against newly crowned Chinese FA Cup winners Shanghai.
A well-taken second-half header from pacy attacker Xie Hui was all that separated the two sides after an entertaining battle at the Hong Kong Stadium that Hong Kong will feel they were unlucky to lose.
Critics will say Hong Kong should have exploited home advantage to beat a team still recovering from Sunday's Cup Final exertions against Liaoning, and few would dispute that Shanghai looked weary in the early part of the game.
But Araujo is still in the process of moulding a team in his image, and even if his side were unable to capitalise on early pressure, the encouraging signs are that he is on the right lines.
If any one single fact illustrated that reputations count for nothing with the craggy Brazilian, it is that only two South China players started last night's match.
Instead, Araujo opted to start with a lineup drawing heavily from the Happy Valley side that has been setting the early season pace in the Ericsson League. No fewer than seven of the starting 11 came from Valley's ranks and this made for rare cohesion in the home-team lineup.