Massive Rebuild!
The Transfer Window Opens
Gansu Tianma
We absolutely destroyed Gansu Tianma. We won, 7-1. No surprises there.
Pietro Rovaglia had an absolutely amazing match, scoring 3 goals quickly and simply dominating offensively. Gansu simply had no answer for him.
That makes 27 straight league wins for us, and an amazing run of 30 wins in a row in all competitions. You’d think that I would be over the moon with delight.
Of course, I’m not.
Hou Yu, who has one foot out the door, gave up a ridiculous goal by playing completely out of position. I don’t care that we were up 5-0 or 6-0 or whatever it was at the time. He’s not going to be able to survive at higher levels if he’s letting in awful goals like that at our current level.
Rovaglia is going to get more game time now that Luciano Parra is injured. Parra has injured ankle ligaments, which will open the door for Rovaglia to score even more goals. My assistant managers think that Rovaglia is the better player, though we’ll see if they change their tune in the end. All I care about is scoring goals, and I hope that Rovaglia has worked in training on staying onside.
I do think we will be fine, though. You’ll think so, too, when you see the sort of players we brought in.
Transfers
We brought in 108 new players.
I’m not kidding. Most of them are young, though, and a whole ton of them are goalkeepers. I went kind of nuts once I realized that all Chinese clubs are required to use only Chinese goalkeepers.
We don’t necessarily have a monopoly on talent, but at least we can sort through them and figure out which ones are good.
And we still have over 100 million RMB to spend in our transfer budget. Chairman Guo keeps telling me to spend, so I’ll keep spending.
Players Out
Only two noteworthy players have left.
As I mentioned before, Adrian Sander, our 21-year-old Brazilian center back, was signed by Jiangsu FC. We might see him again really soon, actually.
Our fans are a bit skeptical about this deal. The truth, though, is that Sander simply wasn’t good enough to compete with the likes of Rovaglia and Torres. He was upset that I wasn’t starting him, and I likely wasn’t ever going to start him. Selling him was simply the best option.
The other one, of course, is Hou Yu, who joins Shandong.
The fans are understandably furious about this deal. Hou Yu never lost a match for us, and gave up only 2 league goals during his time with us.
I’ll never be able to forgive him for giving up 4 goals in that awful match against Qingdao Hainiu, however. I’m convinced that he would only play worse if he stayed on as we move our way up the ranks.
We’ve got better goalkeepers now anyway. Hou Yu will likely be a fringe player at best with Shandong, and I doubt we’ll hear more about him again.
Players In
It would take me a long time to go through each of our signings, even if I limited myself to first team players only.
Instead, I’ll go through the players that are going to start our next match. I’ll introduce our new players before they appear, and will try to make it easy for you to keep up.
In goal for our next match will be Chen Wei. Chen Wei is a 24-year-old Chinese backup goalkeeper who is only starting this match because our new first-choice goalkeeper is fatigued.
Chen Wei comes in from Shanghai Port in the Chinese Super League. We bought him for a cool 4 million RMB. He wasn’t getting a ton of game time with Shanghai Port, and will likely ride the bench for us as well.
He’s good enough for this level, but will likely be a fringe player until we can find some good young goalkeepers with high potential and good personalities.
Rafaël Jire Rafael is an 18-year-old Belgian right back who is only starting our next match because Pak Myong-Song is still on international duty.
Rafael comes in from Jong KV Mechelen in the Belgian lower leagues. We got him for only 400,000 RMB, which I think is an absolute bargain for a player with his potential.
Rafael is probably not quite good enough to be a starter, but slots into our first team nicely.
George Hall is an 18-year-old English midfielder who we stole away from Birmingham.
Hall cost us a cool 10 million RMB, which is our biggest transfer ever. That might give you an idea as to why I’ve had a hard time spending the 350 million RMB I’ve been given.
He wasn’t quite good enough for the Championship, but he should be more than good enough to play in China. I’m wondering if we can make him home grown at club.
Jacob Dicko Eng is an 18-year-old Norwegian attacking left winger who we bought from Vålerenga. We’ve actually got quite a Norwegian presence on this squad now — almost as significant as our Korean boys.
Eng cost us 7.5 million RMB, which I think was another good bit of transfer business. Vålerenga are in the Norwegian top flight, and he had managed to crack the first team before we convinced him to come be a star in Yanji.
Eng comes in as our best left winger by a long shot. Our squad is starting to look a lot more professional.
Camil Jebara is a 19-year-old Swedish attacking right winter who seems to have come in completely under the radar.
Jebara cost 7 million RMB from Landskrona Boll och Idrottsällskap, down in the Swedish lower leagues. He played well during their 2022 season.
At only 19, Jebara is clearly the best offensive player on our team, and looks like an absolute wonder signing.
Finally, Younes Delfi is our Huang Bowen replacement up front. Delfi is a 22-year-old Iranian striker who looks absolutely awesome.
We picked Delfi up from Foolad for only 470,000 RMB, which is an absolute bargain. He had previously played in Belgium and Croatia before returning to Iran.
Delfi should help us forget about Huang Bowen in a hurry. He’s far too good to play at this level, and might be the long-term striker we’ve been looking for.
We’ve got more first team players coming; stay tuned.
Monthly Review
We’ve hit January 2023, which means we can take a more broad look at how things are going.
We’re still rich, of course. Our finances are doing just fine, thank you very much.
The board is generally happy with everything, though I think my transfer spending spree made them upset. I went a little bit nuts, signing every young Chinese player I could find who didn’t seem like a disaster on first sight. In hindsight, I regret doing it, as many of those players came in with the inconsistent kiss of death.
The fans are generally happy, though they are concerned about some of those transfers. They’ll forget about Hou Yu soon enough.
Our squad dynamics didn’t take much of a hit, despite the crazy transfer season. A number of previously influential players are now on the under-21 team, unregistered and waiting to leave the club. We did bring in a few older Chinese players with extremely professional personalities to try to help establish more law and order in the dressing room.
In fact, I saw that right away. I made a few adjustments to the playing time for four of our players. Each of them felt upset, and yet each of them left their meeting with me feeling content with what I decided on. Maybe there is something to this morale thing after all.
The Big One
Our next match is the big one: a Chinese FA Cup game in Nanjing against none other than Jiangsu FC.
The media are convinced that we’re going to win this one without any problems. I’m not quite so optimistic.
6 of our 11 starting players came in the day before this match, for example. Our squad cohesion isn’t abysmal, but it also isn’t all that great. The players haven’t even had time to shake hands before being asked to go out and put on a show.
And, of course, we’ll see if Adrian Sander winds up playing against us.
Chairman Guo called in to tell me that he expects me to win. I guess I’m thankful for the confidence, though it would be nicer to hear some moral support rather than “you will win at all costs.”
Charlotte is going to be disappointed that Lee Jin-Yong won’t start. Hall is much better than Lee Jin-Yong, but he’s not quite as handsome, I’m afraid.
I hope for a win, but I’m feeling nervous.