Squeaking By!
We win promotion, despite playing poorly.
Please note that you can find the latest standings and selected statistics on this splash page.
Promoted!
Well, we did it. We managed to secure promotion to the Chinese First Division.
We didn’t look particularly good, though. Beijing Baxy, who are in 22nd place and are a simply awful team, managed to hold our strikers at bay. We won this one by 2-0, one of the slimmest margins we’ve had all season.
Pietro Rovaglia became the hero, scoring two quick goals in the first half that proved to be the final margin of victory. Our other strikers were eerily quiet. Mueanta had the worst game that he’s had for us yet, and has me worried about how he’ll do next season.
There was a crowd of 1,000 there to watch us, probably the biggest crowd that Beijing Baxy has had all season long. I’m just happy that we were able to put it away.
The Spoils of Victory
Everybody is happy following our triumph.
Chairman Guo was thrilled, though he did remind me that he knew we would wind up on top all along. We’ll see if he is willing to open up his pocket book a bit more for us in the coming transfer window.
It wasn’t exactly a shock result for the board, of course. The board thought all along that we should gain automatic promotion to the First Division this season. If we really want to impress them, we’d better duplicate the feat next season.
The fans are also delighted, though they had the same expectation right from the start. They don’t give you a lot of room to budge around these parts.
Anyway, we’ve got two big pieces of news after this victory. The first is that our Under 21 team has officially won its group, after an emphatic 10-0 win. The Under 21 team has gone undefeated in its season to date, and looks absolutely stellar. Young striker Max McMillan scored 36 goals in his youth season for us, making me wonder whether he’ll start trying to elbow his way into the first team squad next season.
The second big piece of news is that Ye Jie has finally gotten over the sale of Fan Xiang. Being able to start for the Chinese national team during the most recent international break might have helped calm him down a bit. However, I’m afraid to say that it’s probably too little too late for the 28 year old centerback. With youngsters like Yan Kun and Paulsen hanging around the first team, Ye Jie is starting to look expendable.
Winning The League?
The next task facing us is to defeat Ningxia Renhaixi once again.
If we win this one we win the league. It’s as simple as that.
Please note that you can find the latest standings and selected statistics on this splash page.