On April 11, news about Shanghai Harbour attracted the attention of Chinese football: first the AFC and Shanghai Harbour Club officially confirmed that Shanghai Harbour had decided to withdraw from this season's AFC Champions League. Prior to this, another Chinese Super League team, Changchun Yatai, had announced its withdrawal from qualifying for this season's AFC Champions League. Now, only Shandong Taishan and Guangzhou teams are left in the Chinese Super League, which will be dominated by youth teams and team up to participate in this season's AFC Champions League.
Of course, under the current severe epidemic prevention and control situation in Shanghai, it is not surprising that Shanghai Seaport has made a decision to withdraw from the AFC Champions League. After all, the current epidemic prevention situation in Shanghai is very severe, and how to successfully participate in the Chinese Super League has become a big problem, not to mention going overseas to participate in the AFC Champions League. Like Shandong Taishan, Shanghai Harbor's AFC Champions League group match is also in Thailand, but when the young players of Taishan team have gone to Thailand on the 11th, the Harbor team has never been able to finalize the itinerary, and in terms of time, it is too late. In fact, Shandong Taishan, Shanghai Haigang and Guangzhou have previously determined the AFC Champions League participation policy dominated by young players, and in fact, they have long since chosen to strategically abandon the AFC Champions League in order to ensure the domestic league.
The AFC officially announced the withdrawal of Shanghai Harbour from the AFC Champions League
Shanghai Harbor announced its withdrawal from the AFC Champions League, which made Harbor fans feel some regrets, but soon, Zhu Yi, the Chinese administrator of the German "Transfer Market" website, brought them a solid piece of good news - international Zhang Linpeng is about to "return to the roots" and join Shanghai Harbor. 11 years ago, Zhang Linpeng joined Guangzhou from the predecessor of Shanghai Harbor, Shanghai East Asia, and now Zhang Linpeng will return to the "place where the dream began".
Zhang Linpeng, who is about to be 33 years old, can play center back, and has occupied the position of full-back in guangzhou for many years, with hardness and experience, which is more in line with Lecco's three-back system. More importantly, as an old minister who was in the team during the Shanghai East Asian period and the captain of the national team, Zhang Linpeng's qualifications are enough to carry the banner of the leader of the harbor backline.
What is lamentable is that the ups and downs of Zhang Linpeng's career can just reflect the historical trajectory before and after the "Golden Yuan Era" of Chinese football. Zhang Linpeng first received football training in Shandong, and came to the Chongming Island Genbao Base at the age of 11, where his football path gradually got on the right track. In 2006, he represented Shanghai East Asia in the Second Division, successfully broke through the first division as the champion of the Chinese Second Division in the following year, helped Shanghai team win the men's football group A championship of the 11th National Games in 2009, and completed the triple jump of the national youth, national Olympic and national teams in these years. At this point, Zhang Linpeng can be regarded as an outstanding youth training representative produced by the professional training system.
At the beginning of 2010, Guangzhou Guangzhou Pharmaceutical was relegated to the Chinese First Division, Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group withdrew from Chinese football, Evergrande Group bought out the ownership of the club, and the vigorous "Golden Yuan Era" of Chinese football began. At the end of the 2010 season, Guangzhou Evergrande, which completed the task of rushing to overtake, continued to wave a checkbook to buy players, and Zhang Linpeng finally joined Guangzhou Evergrande from Shanghai East Asia for 12 million yuan, plus a transfer fee of 1 million yuan. Interestingly, at that time, Zhang Linpeng did not want to leave his "Chongming Island little partner", and he was very resistant to joining Guangzhou Evergrande, and he was eventually "forced" to go to Evergrande by Xu Genbao, who was the mentor and coach of East Asia at the time.
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Zhang Linpeng also refused to leave. I said, you don't go, in my place the annual salary of 200,000, to Evergrande 2 million, you go? He doesn't go. If you don't go, you will be pushed away.
——Xu Genbao, then head coach of Shanghai East Asian Football Team
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However, this time ,"La Lang Match" has achieved Zhang Linpeng's brilliant career. In the 11 years he played in Guangzhou, he won 2 AFC Champions League titles and 8 Chinese Super League titles... The peak of Zhang Linpeng's career completely coincided with the Guangzhou Evergrande Dynasty. At Evergrande, Zhang Linpeng grew into the "Chinese Ramos", and he also left his best 11 years of youth in Yangcheng.
However, just when Zhang Linpeng had already taken root in Guangzhou and forged a legend, fate smiled slyly, and his career shifted again. In the 2021 season, Evergrande Group suffered a financial crisis, and the fate of the Guangzhou team also became turbulent, Cannavaro and naturalized internationals left successively, the team relied on the spontaneous training of players to maintain the state, and Zhang Linpeng, who was in the national team at the time, also felt the change in the team atmosphere. However, under all kinds of difficult circumstances, Zhang Linpeng resolutely returned to guangzhou and played the remaining Chinese Super League matches with the team. Originally, Zhang Linpeng's contract with the Guangzhou team was to end at the end of 2022, but under the guangzhou team's "ultra-low-cost" operation policy, Zhang Linpeng could only say goodbye to the Guangzhou team.
What is quite black humor is that whether it was when he first came out of his youth in Shanghai East Asia, or later laid a legendary position in Guangzhou Evergrande, Zhang Linpeng was bent on pursuing the word "loyalty", but fate played a big joke with him. From being "forced" to join Evergrande to the "Evergrande Dynasty" waking up and leaving helplessly, he has been wrapped up in the "golden dollar football" all the way forward, and many times he can't make his own decisions.
"Jinyuan Football" gave Zhang Linpeng the best treatment of local players in the history of Chinese football, but also let him leave Shanghai East Asia, where he let go of his football dreams, and the small partners who lived day and night; Jinyuan football allowed Zhang Linpeng to achieve the glory of dominating the AFC Champions League and sweeping Chinese football, but it also left him with lifelong regrets that he could not stay in the Ocean to continue to improve; Jinyuan football allowed Zhang Linpeng to cooperate with many of the world's top coaches and stars at the best age of his career. But he has drifted away from his childhood dream of representing China in the World Cup...
In the strange environment of Chinese football, Zhang Linpeng seems to have a choice, in fact, many times, even he himself is difficult to control his fate. It seems that Zhang Linpeng is extremely lucky, but in his heart, there are bound to be many regrets and unwillingness.