Bitterness, match-fixing and iffy insoles – no love lost between Tianjin sides ahead of their derby
Former powerhouse Teda near the foot of the Chinese Super League with fans hopping over to support star names at healthcare giant-backed Quanjian
The derby in Tianjin, a port city of 15 million people close to Beijing, showcases two very different sides of modern Chinese football.
Teda are the traditional but fading power, the older club with a dwindling following and facing another season fighting to stay in the CSL.
Quanjian, named after and bankrolled by a healthcare company, are the upstarts now with the better attendances and star names in Brazilian forward Alexandre Pato, French striker Anthony Modeste and Belgian international Axel Witsel.
To spice things up further, many of Quanjian’s fans are former Teda supporters who defected because they were fed up seeing their team lose.
There was no Tianjin Quanjian until 2015 when Quanjian Natural Medical Group took over relative minnows Tianjin Songjiang, having ended their sponsorship of Teda in acrimonious circumstances.
Sam Wang, co-founder of the Tianjin Teda ultra group “Tiger Wings” comprising about 120 fanatical fans, said that much of his “hatred” of Quanjian stems from this.