Hull's Asia Trophy Story

Hull Opened their Asia Trophy Campaign with a 5-4 penalty win over Beijing Guoan. Geovanni Opened the scoring it was cancelled out early in the second half. Tottenham beat West Ham earlier in the day to set up a Final of Hull v Tottenham which Phil Brown was very happy about.

"It's always difficult going into a game when you don't really know the opposition," said Brown.

"That is not being disrespectful to Guoan because I thought they were tremendous opposition. They showed what they were capable of in the first ten minutes and put us on the back foot to a certain extent.

"But I thought the goal took the wind out of their sales. They were on the back foot after that and we could have killed the game before half time. But 1-0 was always dangerous.

"After they equalised, there were one or two scary moments for us as well as them. It was a competitive match.

"But we've come here to be competitive and not just to make the numbers up. It's also about our preparation (for the new season) and our fitness levels.

"We want to rekindle a little bit of the desire that went to a certain extent towards the end of last season and we showed a little bit of that today.

"It was important that we progressed through to the final and we did that. People might have looked at our opposition today and thought that it would be an easy game, but pre-season games are never easy.

"Our levels of fitness in the searing heat were testimony to three weeks of hard work."

However it wasn't to be a pleasant experience of competing in the final losing 3-0 to Tottenham. Two goals from Robbie Keane and one from Aaron Lennon sealed the win for Spurs.