Opinion | Wu Lei takes Espanyol back into Europe and changes the club’s China pre-season plans

There’s one wholly owned Chinese club in England’s Premier League and one in Spain’s La Liga, the two strongest leagues in the world.

Both finished seventh this season and were delighted to do so. In England, Wolverhampton Wanderers, owned by Fosun, impressed throughout and were seventh for most of the season.

In Spain, Barcelona-based Espanyol, owned by Rastar boss Chen Yansheng, rose to seventh for the first time in 2019 only in the final minutes of the season. Espanyol were at a season-low 15th place in the final week of January, the week they signed Chinese striker Wu Lei, who became the first Chinese footballer to score in La Liga.

Wu , 27, helped transform Espanyol’s season. They had lost nine of their previous ten league games before the current Chinese player of the year arrived. They lost two in 12 with him up front. He played in 16 of those 17, with the most dramatic on Saturday in the final league game against Real Sociedad.

Espanyol needed to win to stand any hope of claiming the last European spot and play in European football for the first time since 2005. They also needed Athletic Bilbao to lose in Sevilla. And they had the small matter of playing Real Sociedad with whom they were level on 50 points and who also had European hopes. The prevailing thought among the 26,568 Espanyol fans, their highest crowd of the season, was that Athletic would get the draw they needed against Sevilla who were already in the Europa League, yet Sevilla had an outside chance of a top four finish and Champions League football.

At half time, Espanyol were ninth in the table. Then they scored through Rosales after 58 minutes. Wu Lei got the second after 66 minutes, placing the ball firmly past the goalkeeper after a one on one. He took his shirt off and held it aloft as he celebrated with fans.