IT is easy to be wise after the event, of course, but you can't help wondering how much better South China would have fared in the Asian Cup Winners' Cup final if they had played their overseas goalkeeper in both matches rather than just the away leg, by which time the contest was as good as over.
South China - and, for that matter, Eastern in the Asian Club Championship - decided to fill their three-strong overseas quota with outfield players, putting their local Chinese 'keeper in goal.
To be fair to Leung Cheuk-cheung, South China's perennial reserve, he played exceptionally well in the first round of the Cup Winners' Cup, keeping a clean sheet in a 2-0 victory over Dalian at Mongkok Stadium and then turning in a heroic, courageous display in the 1-0 second-leg defeat in Liaoning province, where he took a rare old battering in a hostile atmosphere.
Leung was called on again for the quarter-final tie with East Bengal, keeping another clean sheet in a 1-0 win in Calcutta and conceding only one in a one-sided 4-1 victory in the return game at Mongkok.
Given this background, South China's decision to play Leung in the home leg of the final against Saudi Arabia's Al-Qadisiyah at the Hong Kong Stadium on March 19 was understandable.
Unfortunately for Leung and South China, the 'keeper's nerves failed him on the big night and he chose the wrong time to have what surely must have been the worst game of his career.