Can We Win The Chinese FA Cup?
We've made a major final after only one season!
Please note that you can find the latest standings and selected statistics on this splash page.
Chinese FA Cup Final
I can’t believe that we made it this far this quickly.
It’s been only a single season, and yet we’ve already made it to the top of the Chinese football world. We played a huge final in front of a sold out crowd and a large television audience. And we took on Shenzhen FC, a team much more reputable (and arguably better) than us.
And we won.
We won this one 2-0. It was closer than the scoreline would have you think.
The first half was scoreless, and I was worried that we were really going to blow it.
Our first goal came from Pietro Rovaglia in the 57th minute. It was a complete fluke. Luciano Parra passed the ball aimlessly ahead to absolutely nobody, and made a half-hearted attempt to run after it. The Shenzhen rightback went back to the ball, and inexplicably decided to pass it back to goal instead of letting it go out for a goal kick. Rovaglia saw what was happening, ran towards goal just in time, and got his head on it.
Shenzhen had a number of good chances right afterwards. We scored the second after a set piece on a great shot from Delfi that happened to ricochet off the foot of Shenzhen captain Lim Chai-Min.
And, well, that’s all that we needed.
We’ve done the double.
The Summer
Victory is sweet, but it was still a long summer.
We had dozens of players coming in and out. I don’t know how many players we’ve got out on loan now. It’s absolutely crazy.
We did make a few large signings, though I’ll have to introduce you to the new players tomorrow. Everybody seems to think that we’re going to straight out win promotion from the First Division this year. Chairman Guo thinks that we should be able to win the league outright.
I’m not sure that we’ll go undefeated this time, but I suppose we’ll give it a try.
Time really does heal all wounds. Jacob Dicko Eng got over the food poisoning and is no longer upset about not playing often enough. I guess Charlotte really got to him after all.
Our fanbase seems to have increased quite a bit. We’ve now got over 300,000 social media followers, an increase from where we were at the start by over 30%. I hope that this eventually translates into larger crowds.
The board also surprised me by suddenly deciding to install under-soil heating in the stadium, a project that it completed this summer. This should help with those frosty winter games.
We’re doing well financially. We wound up with a new soft drink partnership deal worth 200 million RMB per year, which is excellent. Mueanta, Rovaglia, Parra, Delfi, and Dicko Eng sold the most shirts — though we all know that Lee Jin-Yong is clearly the most popular player at the club.
Oh — and I also fielded interview requests from several European clubs, including Celtic. I turned them all down, of course. I’ve got a lot of unfinished business here.
UEFA Europa Conference League
You might recall that I mentioned way back in the beginning that there is now a road into Europe for Chinese teams.
Well, we’re about to experience that first hand.
Because we won the Chinese FA Cup, we have been invited to the UEFA Europa Conference League. In fact, the first two matches of the new season will be against FK Voždovac in Serbia.
We’re also slight favorites to win the first match, even though we have to travel to the other side of the world for it.
I’ve made a number of players upset with me because I had to leave them out of our squad. The rules are pretty strict: we are supposed to have 4 players that are home grown at club, or that have spent 3 years at Yanbian between their 16th and 21st birthdays. We have very few of those players left, unfortunately.
The other problem, of course, is that the Conference League will only allow a maximum roster of 25 players. I’ve got our First Division roster down to 33 right now. We simply can’t include everybody.
Fortunately, most of our influential stars were understanding. There were a few fringe players who were upset, but most of them won’t ever make it off our under 21 squad anyway. I’m sure we’ll be fine.
I can’t wait for the new chapter to begin!
Please note that you can find the latest standings and selected statistics on this splash page.