New Chinese Wonderkid Goalkeeper!
Will We Ever Lose?
Huge Win
We didn’t just beat Jiangsu FC. We absolutely torched them.
The 6-2 final score looks closer than the match really was. After a nervous scoreless first half, new signing Younes Delfi pushed one across, followed quickly by a goal from Rovaglia. And that opened up the floodgates.
In all, both Delfi and Rovaglia wound up with two goals. Dutra, a youngster who had been on the under 21 squad until the day before this match, chimed in with two goals of his own, both from free kicks.
Jiangsu did manage to score two, both from their target man Xiao Jinqing. We wound up starting new signing Chen Wei at goal, as I mentioned yesterday. He didn’t look good on either of those Xiao Jinqing shots, though I will note that he seemed to fare better than I think Hou Yu would have.
They gave the man of the match award to Rovaglia, though I think Delfi might have been more deserving. We’ve got some really good strikers on this team now.
Rovaglia is fortunate to get the start, of course. Parra is still my personal first choice among the two, though Rovaglia seems to have made better progress recently.
The press grilled me a bit for taking Rovaglia off around the 60 minute mark. He was sitting on a potential hat trick, and I probably should have left him on. He looked tired, though, and I didn’t want to overuse him in a match that we had basically already won by that point. We’ll see if he complains, though I doubt he will.
Anyway, all of that means that we still are undefeated and untied in all competitions this season. We’re also made it to the quarter finals of the Chinese FA Cup, which impresses even Chairman Guo. We’re moving up!
More New Faces
I’ve got two new players to introduce you to.
First is Jung In-Gyom (정인겸), an 18-year-old South Korean attacking left midfielder from South Korea who looks incredibly good.
I think he might turn out to be a real bargain. We paid Bayer 04 only 275,000 RMB for him, which is an insane steal in my opinion. He never made any Bundesliga appearances, but I’m certain we’ll be able to put him to good use right away.
He’s consistent and has the potential to be a Chinese Super League player, which is what I care most about. I think he also could become home grown at club, assuming he stays for the long term.
Second, of course, is Liu Shaoziyang (劉邵子洋), a 19-year-old Chinese goalkeeper who is going to become our long-term keeper.
He was capped at the under 23 level, and I’m pretty sure he’ll make it to the Chinese national team before long. We paid 3 million RMB to take him off of the hands of Bayern München.
Yes, you read that right. We’re raiding the Bundesliga of its young talent now.
Liu Shaoziyang has a great professional personality, is a natural leader for the squad, and has the potential to be very good. He’s the best Chinese goalkeeper our scouts could find.
Liaoning
We host Liaoning FC again in our next match.
Liaoning is in 4th place, but they don’t stand a chance here. We bought their best striker, Cheng Binbin, from them before the start of the transfer window. He’s with us now, which means that they don’t really have much of an attack.
We’ll get to Cheng Binbin in a future writeup. For now, we’re going to focus on beating Liaoning and keeping our streak alive.