Giovanni van Bronckhorst won the battle of the big-name managers at the foot of the Chinese Super League as his Guangzhou R&F side notched their first win of the season over Rafa Benitez’s Dalian Pro side on Sunday. The game, which was decided by Israeli striker Eran Zahavi’s 29th minute penalty, had been postponed from Saturday night after heavy rain in Dalian. Benitez’s side are the only team in the Chinese Super League’s bubbles to enjoy anything like homefield advantage, with this rescheduled fixture taking place at the club’s training ground. However, familiarity has been no help to Benitez or his side who are now in bottom place in the eight-team group A, with the win taking R&F above them. Dalian are the only team in group A yet to win a game since the season began last month, five months late. After the 1:0 loss to Giavanni Van Bronckhorst's Guangzhou R&F in the postponed game, Rafa Benitez's Dalian Pro, as the host club, hit the rock bottom of the Dalian Group (2 pts in 5 games). In the last game they have avoided a loss thanks to a controversial injury-time penalty. pic.twitter.com/wXjcLN6ab3 — Titan Sports Plus (@titan_plus) August 16, 2020 “We needed to have the calm to take the chances that we had,” Benitez said after the game. “As I’ve said many times, it’s a young team and we have to learn from our mistakes and keep working. That’s it, you cannot do too much.” His young team includes veteran Marek Hamsik and former Newcastle United striker Salomon Rondon. Reminder: Rafa Benitez's Dalian Pro vs Giovanni Van Bronckhorst's Guangzhou R&F, due to kickoff 20:00 yesterday but postponed due to severely drenched pitch after downpour, will be played today at 15:00(UTC+8) in Dalian Pro's newly-built youth training center. 3 matches today. pic.twitter.com/7lb6qe0iPG — Titan Sports Plus (@titan_plus) August 16, 2020 Dalian will be missing Lin Liangming for the next game after he needed stitches following a head injury. “It’s not easy when you only have one point to play like this so I’m happy with the result,” returning R&F midfielder Mousa Dembele said. “We’ve had some bad luck but everyone played with a lot of courage and today the defence really played like men.” In Suzhou, Sunday’s games saw shock results for the top two teams against the Chinese top flight’s newly promoted clubs. Beijing Guoan, the only team with a 100 per cent record, raced into a 3-0 lead inside the opening 30 minutes against Wu Jingui’s Qingdao Huanghai side, the goals coming from Cedric Bakambu, Alan Carvalho and John Hou Saeter. However, Qingdao pulled two back before the interval. The first came from in-form French forward Romain Alessandrini, who made no mistake from the penalty spot after Guoan’s Lu Peng fouled Zhu Jianrong. Zhu then headed in to pull another goal back just before the half-time whistle. Alessandrini scored another for his CSL scrapbook when the former LA Galaxy player drove home from long range in the 71st minute to finish the scoring. “Although many of us haven’t played in the Chinese Super League for a long time, drawing with such strong teams as Guoan and Shanghai SIPG gave us great confidence,” Zhu said. Chinese football’s only female physio on bizarre CSL season “We played our best first 30 minutes of this season, but we just stopped after the 35th minute and I don't know why,” Hou Saeter, also known as Hou Yongyong, said. Elsewhere, Brazilian striker Hulk came off the bench to help Shanghai SIPG come back to draw 1-1 against newly promoted Shijiazhuang Ever Bright. The 34-year-old striker, who has been linked with a return to Brazil with Palmeiras, volleyed home from a corner before Marko Arnautovic thought he had won it with a goal chalked off for offside in the build-up. Benitez and Van Bronckhorst rained off while Shandong win again Shijiazhuang, who rose to third after gaining another point, opened the scoring through Zang Yifeng after he tapped in on the 50th minute. “We were a little nervous at the beginning, but overall we did a good job. Few teams in the CSL can draw with Shanghai SIPG, so this point means a lot to us,” said Brazilian striker Muriqui. The Beijing and Shanghai sides meet in the next round of fixtures.