Winning The League?
Can we do it?
Please note that you can find the latest standings and selected statistics on this splash page.
The Title
I was nervous for this one.
We didn’t do anything in the first half to put me at ease, either. Pietro Rovaglia won a penalty in the 25th minute, but his shot was saved by the keeper. I should have insisted on Younes Delfi taking the penalty, but Rovaglia hopped in there before I could say anything.
We went into halftime drawing 0-0.
A draw would have secured us the title. But you know how things are around here. We want to win every match. Drawing just doesn’t do it.
I took Rovaglia off after his awful first half performance. And that’s when Delfi started working his magic.
Delfi’s first goal came from a corner in the 46th minute, a close range shot that probably was offside.
His second, third, and fourth came within 5 minutes of each other, near the 60 minute mark.
And we won, 4-0.
The Chinese National Second Division Northern Group title is now ours. We knew coming into this that we were going to be promoted. I never thought that we would wind up going undefeated, however.
This wasn’t exactly a surprise. The pundits had us picked to win before the season started, and that was before I started making big splashes in the transfer market.
Still, a win is a win. The board is happy, our fans are happy, and I’m happy.
We’ve now won 39 league matches in a row. We’ll see if we can keep our Chinese FA Cup dreams alive in the next match. It’s going to be close.
Honestly, I’m still not convinced that this team is good enough to compete at the Chinese Super League level, let alone in the European Champions League. We’ll see when we get there, I suppose.
Even the likes of Delfi have had off games here and there. I worry that some of our younger players have developed a strong dislike for big matches. And, of course, I want to do everything in my power to ensure that we’re developing good Chinese players.
Speaking of which, we finally managed to get recognition in the Team of the Month. Liu Shaoziyang and Yan Kun, two of our young Chinese stars, were recognized as the best at their positions for the month of August. I’m hoping that is a sign of things to come.
Month In Review
It’s April, which means it’s time to look back at what happened in March.
We’re still rich, of course. We haven’t been turning much of a profit, but there’s still more than enough money to keep us going for quite some time.
The board is pleased with everything except for my transfers. Actually, Chairman Guo still doesn’t seem all that thrilled with our results, despite the fact that we’ve won the league title without losing a single game. I’m not sure what more he wants from us.
The supporters are even more upset about my transfer policy. I guess my policy of signing every halfway decent under-18 player we can find regardless of future potential isn’t winning over a lot of converts. Sadly, there’s no way for me to tell everybody that they’ll thank me in 5 years for what I’m doing here.
Our squad dynamics are good, especially now that Ye Jie is happy again. He’s happy just in time for me to sell him this summer.
The one piece of sad news is that Zhang Jianyi, our left back, is out with damaged cruciate ligaments. That’s going to keep him out for 9 months, and likely will mean the end of his career. I was never really convinced by his abilities to begin with, and I just don’t see him getting past this injury — certainly not if we keep improving our personnel.
We’ve had a number of injuries lately. Hopefully we can stop that problem from spreading.
Guangzhou City
We’ve got another huge one coming up.
We’re going down to Guangzhou to face Guangzhou City in the Chinese FA Cup semi final.
The press think that we’re going to win. I actually think we have a better chance this time than we did against Zhejiang FC. Guangzhou are in 11th place in the Chinese Super League and haven’t played well lately. We’re not only undefeated, but we’re also going to start Luciano Parra and Suphanat Mueanta, our two big star strikers.
We’ll have Lee Jin-Yong out there too, for the ladies.
Chairman Guo expects us to win, of course. He always expects us to win. Let’s hope that we don’t disappoint him.
Please note that you can find the latest standings and selected statistics on this splash page.