2009 Dec 08 Talking Balls: Groups of Death and Deathly Groups
The AFC Champions’ League draw took place yesterday. Beijing Guoan’s reward for winning the CSL title is Kawasaki Frontale, J.League runners-up in three of the past four years, K-League runners-up Seongnam Ilhwa and reigning A-League champions Melbourne Victory. Matches begin on February 23rd.
The SportAccord Combat Games have been confirmed to take place in late August and early September next year. The event will feature 13 disciplines – some of which are familiar to the Olympics and others that are much more brutal. Fans of seeing split lips and bruising will have to wait ‘til then for the accompanying cultural program.
Real Madrid and their publicity shy star Ronaldo have stated that they will return to Beijing as part of their 2010/11 pre-season tour. Which galacticos that make the trip remains to be seen, as the August 8th date is less than a month after the World Cup final.
According to Sina.com, Miroslav Blazevic is currently negotiating a deal to manage Shanghai Shenhua. If they can get the man that took Croatia to the 1998 World Cup semis then they’ll be doing OK. If they can get Ruud Gullit, who will be in Shanghai this month, then they’ll really put Chinese football on the map.
One other piece of Shanghai shadenfreude is that present coach Zhu Jun refused to pay the wages of five of his players. The reason? They were too passive. Those guilty were Du Wei (who used to be on a short loan to Celtic), Gao Lin, Sun Xiang (who used to play for PSV Eindhoven and FK Austria Wien), Sun Ji and Qiu Shengjiong. The irony is that these were the five top earners on the team. Apparently Zhu saved the club 5,000,000 kuai with his antics. Reports linking this to the current gambling scandal are as yet unfounded.
ZZ WATCH: Zheng Zhi came on as a 79th minute sub for Celtic in their 3-0 win over Aberdeen. The goals were already scored by the time he go on the pitch.
Finally, China has a new football kit. It’s up there at the top of the page. No word on when the fakes hit Yashow.
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Football Fever! CSL Fixture List Announced
The preliminary fixture list for the upcoming season of the Chinese Super League has been announced. Beijing Guoan are scheduled to start with a home game against Guangzhou Fuli on the weekend of March 10/11 and then follow it up with an early season grudge match against Shanghai Shenhua on March 16. It doesn't really get any better than Friday nights watching Beijing take on Shanghai under the floodlights - and with their new signings including the likes of Nicolas Anelka and Guoan's Joel Griffiths there's added spice. Come on you greens.
Below are some big games to look out for and Wild East Football have started to list the the full season here. Bear in mind that this is preliminary and subject to change. One factor that will certainly affect it is Beijing's AFC Champions' League progress (or not, based on previous campaigns).
Talking Balls: Win, Lose & Draw
The Wall Street Journal's China Real Time Report sent Loretta Chao to meet the coolest man in Beijing this week. Subway-riding, Weibo-loving shoe peddler Stephon Marbury allowed the reporter into his home. You can watch the interview below but don't go expecting anything like MTV Cribs. In fact, don't go expecting anything by way of excitement. We're pretty sure the WSJ would take the fun out of any interview, but the Beijing Duck comes across fairly well.
Talking Balls: Farmer Fraud, White Witchdoctors & Ping Pong Problems
It's harvest time and you know what that means: Farmers' Games. A whole crop of them. Last week we told you how Shenzhen came out smelling of roses by refusing to participate but it's not such a positive tale this week. Shanghai held its Seventh Annual Farmers' Games and the tournament was rocked by a scandal. The ping pong competition was discovered to be a hotbed of deception. The champion was found to be ... not a farmer at all but a professional ping pong player who had faked his agricultural credentials. Disgusting enough on its own but this was just one of seven pro players who had smuggled their way into the top level of Shanghai-based agrarian community sporting competition.
View From Gongti: Beijing Guoan 3-0 Henan Construction
Beijing Guoan crushed opponents Henan Construction 3-0 in front of a very lively crowd of 38,000 supporters at Worker’s Stadium Saturday [Sep 24] night. It was a night for the supporters, and some of the players said so much, a bit of revenge for the long night the fans experienced in Zhengzhou four months ago (more on that here).
Manager Jamie Pacheco made only a few slight changes from the midweek lineup; one was Walter Martinez coming on for Ladji Keita and made an instant impact coming close to scoring twice before finally heading in a Wang Xiaolong cross in the 20th minute.
View From Gongti: Beijing Guoan 0-0 Liaoning Whowin
After a long international break, Beijing Guoan was back in action Saturday night at Worker’s Stadium as they faced off against Liaoning Whowin in an important late season match. While Guoan no longer has a chance at the title, with only eight matches left in the season, they are fighting to keep hold of second place, giving them entry in next year’s Asian Champions League.
