Andre Villas-Boas's nine-man Shanghai SIPG side lost their second leg to Luiz Felipe Scolari's Guangzhou 4-0 on Tuesday night.
However, Hulk's 110th-minute strike helped the game go to penalties with an aggregate score of 5-5, after Guangzhou's Ricardo Goulart levelled things in the 118th minute.
Shanghai won the shoot-out 5-4 – with Goulart missing for the hosts.
Despite the epic contest, former Zenit, Tottenham and Chelsea manager Villas-Boas was furious after the game.
He accused Guangzhou of receiving preferential treatment from match officials, and even more drastically, condemned the Chinese Super League champions for delaying Shanghai's route to the Tianhe Stadium by causing car accidents.
"We come here on the bus for this game and the same two cars separately had three accidents in front of us. This is the problem,” said the Portuguese.
“This club [Guangzhou Evergrande] can do everything; they can cause accidents in front of us, they have players who can elbow Elkeson and not be suspended and yet we won.
“The referee gave our goalkeeper a yellow card during the penalties and this is a disgrace. It’s a disgrace.
“This is the biggest victory for SIPG and for these players, who gave everything until the end.”
Scolari, despite criticising the match referee, was in a far more humble mood post-match.
"I congratulate them [Shanghai]. I hope Chinese fans will cheer for them too and hope they can advance further in the Asian Champions League.”
