2018 Season Preview for Shanghai Shenhua (I)
Written by Cameron Wilson, the Chief Editor of WildEastFootball
原标题: North Terrace News: Who dares ride the Shanghai Shenhua rollercoaster this year? 2018 season preview (part 1)
导读: 离新赛季中超开赛还有1个月，WEF总编辑，上海申花站长韦侃仑为自己支持的球队撰写了赛季前瞻。第一部分韦侃仑回顾了球队上赛季过山车式的经历，同时提及了上海申花目前在足协新政下外援过剩的问题。
After the most eventful year in the history of China’s most eventful club, Shanghai Shenhua go into 2018 as surprise CFA cup winners. But can the Hongkou team finally put years of instability and chaos behind them? Wild East Football founding editor Cameron Wilson returns to North Terrace News to put the coming year in perspective.
Scream if you wanna go faster
It’s with some trepidation that Shenhua fans look to the new season. Last year excited supporters climbed aboard the Shenhua fairground ride expecting the usual mixture of anticipation, mild fear, excitement, and then disappointment when it ends. But instead they unwittingly strapped themselves into a roller coaster with an unseen, crazed madman at the controls.
Hongkou on fire
Last year’s ride quickly climbed high with the arrival of superstar Carlos Tevez and the long awaited return of Asian Champions League football, before a sudden drop saw Shenhua crash out to Brisbane in the qualifying round. The track then took a strange turn through the twilight zone with Qin Sheng’s bizarre six month ban, before speeding through the flames of a large fire at Hongkou which forced the club to play on the road for months. Fans then screamed with delight at some thrilling loop-the-loops as the club broke its high-scoring record against Liaoning. More heart-thumping twists and turns followed – an unusually high number of away victories, then a stomach-churning series of ups and downs which saw home defeats to SIPG and Guoan. To make the ride even more disorientating, when Shenhua fans opened their eyes after those two horrific turns, they found themselves in Disneyland with an injured Tevez strolling around as his team-mates struggled away in Changchun. A similar twist saw Carlitos spend an afternoon strolling around again – but this time on the pitch during match against Tianjin Teda. There was worse to come when the ride got stuck upside down in the shape of a 6-1 mauling in the Shanghai derby, and by the time the train got moving again many fans simply couldn’t bear to keep their eyes open. It then became too much for the blue corner of Shanghai as the climb to the final summit appeared – the CFA cup final, that is. By now it was much too late to get off and Shenhua fans’ knuckles turned white en mass as the roller coaster edged higher and higher. But just when it looked as if the blue train would come off the rails and crash in the most horrible way imaginable – a cup defeat to city rivals SIPG – the final big dip turned out to be a thrilling one as the supporters cheered, thinking a happy ending to this insane ride was at last in sight. They were right, but not before one last horrifying loop-the-loop. A late penalty and an own goal saw SIPG almost snatch victory in the CFA cup, before the ride finally came to a halt and delirious, jelly-legged fans staggered off the roller coaster into a CFA cup winner’s wonderland for the first time in 19 years.
Sucker for punishment – Wu Jingui returns for 4th spell as Shenhua coach
Do you dare?
So who dares climb back on the Shenhua roller coaster for another ride? Well, there are a lot of signs that last year was just a bit too much for everyone, even by Shenhua’s standards, and the board are making stability the key this year. Veteran caretaker Wu Jingui is now permanent coach for the fourth time. Word is that the board feel foreign coaches don’t understand China. That is not an unreasonable position. But it’s more appropriate to say that foreign coaches don’t understand Shenhua. Because really, who does? Like all of the Chinese game, it certainly can’t be understood by football alone.
With Wu now the fifth coach in just four years since Greenland took Shenhua over, it’s just glaringly obvious that its not the coaches who are the problem, its the people picking them. However at least Shanghainese Wu Jingui knows what he’s getting himself into – something no foreign coach can possibly realise until its too late. A very well-placed respected Shanghai journalist told your correspondent that Wu Jingui and Shenhua’s chief of operations, Bruce Zhou aka Zhou Jun, are sworn enemies and that Wu was parachuted back into the club a year ago from the wishes of someone powerful “above chairman Wu Xiaohui.” That is reason to feel positive about Wu Jingui this season as most Shenhua fans are openly hostile towards Zhou.
Shenhua’s foreign player dilemma
Hongkou legends – Gio Moreno and Demba Ba
Another year, another raft of CSL rule changes. Now clubs can only have four foreigners in their squad, and use a maximum of three in any one game. They must also start at least one u-23 player, and the total number of u23 players used during the match must not be less than the number of foreign players used. There you go, trust NTN to explain the new rules using only two sentences. For reference, last year teams could have five foreigners in the squad, use a maximum of three during a game, and start one u23 – no need to use more youths – many clubs subbed off their youngster in the opening stages. What this means is most CSL clubs now have to lose a foreigner, and with the 100% transfer tax on new foreign signings, most teams want to hold on to their expensively-acquired overseas talent as much as possible since obtaining similar players is now much harder. Shenhua’s dilemma over who to let go and who to keep is one echoed at a great many other CSL clubs at the moment.
Head coach Wu Jingui described the situation to the Shanghai papers as a “pleasant headache” – somehow, Shenhua had seven foreign players on their books at the start of this season. Of course, Tevez has left, but that still leaves back-from-injury Demba Ba, Gio Moreno, Freddy Guarin, Kim Ke-hee, Obamafei Martins, and Oscar Romero.