Big-spending Shanghai Shenhua poster child for China’s reforms
Top-flight club are a success story much like the country’s system, which only a few years ago was riddled by match-fixing and corruption
For Chinese Super League club Shanghai Shenhua, the new season has brought new optimism.
After several years of turmoil that saw the team stripped of their 2003 CSL title in a match-fixing investigation and foreign stars Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka depart midway through their contracts during a shareholder dispute, Shenhua are finding success again on the pitch, with three wins to start the season.
The players have an obvious chemistry, too – even if they cannot always understand one another.
At a recent practice in Shanghai’s sprawling suburbs, Shenhua’s latest marquee signing, Australia international Tim Cahill, bantered with Colombian captain Giovanni Moreno and several Chinese teammates in a mix of English, Chinese and Spanish.
I see Chinese players who are at a very, very high level and they could play today in the French Ligue 1 [France’s elite division].”
The team’s translators, meanwhile, got a work-out as the goalkeeper coach, Juan Mesquida Garcia, barked rapid-fire instructions in Spanish, and the new manager, Francis Gillot, gave interviews to the media in French.