Born Leader
Part 9 | Yanbian FC | 延边足球俱乐部 | 연변축구 | FM23 Hardcore Mode
Over the Hump
It wasn’t pretty, but we managed to pull it off.
Tang Xincheng scored our first goal against Beijing University in the 5th minute. It wasn’t exactly smooth sailing from there, though. We had a few good chances, but were rebuffed by a good defensive effort from the students.
Mr. Kwon took a penalty in the 44th minute which the Beijing University keeper saved. Kwon tried to shoot it in again from an angle, but wound up hitting the side bar. He had a particularly poor game; I’m wondering if he wasn’t still ruing his red card in the Chinese FA Cup match.
We finally scored again in the 72nd minute. Centerback Kristoffer Paulsen headed in a free kick, and that was that.
The 2-0 victory wasn’t as dominant as our other victories have been. At least we didn’t lose, though.
The Leader
We’ve all got our own favorite players, I suppose.
Charlotte has given up on watching our current team entirely. She prefers to spend her days scouring the Yanji hospitals with the other ladies in the Lee Jin-Yong fan club. I don’t think that they’ve found him quite yet, but they’ve also covered just about every hospital in the entire Yanbian Korean Autonomous Region.
I mean, I’m a fan of Lee Jin-Yong as well, but he doesn’t bring the leadership skills to our club that I really want to see. For that, I look for the likes of Fan Xiang.
Fan Xiang hails from a ethnic Korean family here in Yanji. At 24 years old, he is one of the few homegrown players on this club that has talent — and just so happens to be the natural club leader, too.
It’s amazing what he’s been able to do with these players. No matter where they come from, no matter how little Chinese they understand, Fan Xiang has been able to earn their respect and get them in line. Together with Ye Jie, our other born leader, the two of them form an extremely strong leadership front, one that I think might last us for years.
I do wish Fan Xiang were a more talented player, but we’ll take what we can get. It’s the leadership I care about more than the on-field talent anyway.
I’ve heard rumors that Fan Xiang is related to the great Chinese defender Fan Zhiyi (formerly of Crystal Palace), though he assures me that the shared family name is only coincidental. I wouldn’t sell Fan Xiang to a Premier League side if they came asking anyway, even if they did make me a multi-million offer.
As for Lee Jin-Yong… we’ll address that one another day.
Qinghai
We’re on the road again, this time to visit Qinghai Oulu.
Qinghai play on the campus of Qinghai Normal University. You’re probably wondering where in the world that is. It happens to be on the western end of the country, a good 3,000 kilometer drive away, or about 31 hours if you hit all the green lights.
Of course, we’re going to fly. Chairman Guo will see to that. As long as we stay on his good side, he’s more than happy to spend money to make us feel comfortable.
Understandably, we’re only going to have around 200 away fans at the “stadium.” I’m not certain that it can be considered a stadium, of course, since the ground only has a 1,000 person capacity.
If we don’t win this one, something is terribly wrong.