Guangzhou still the team to beat as CSL kicks off
Print Edition
AFTER outspending even the English Premier League with an avalanche of cash to assemble a glittering array of foreign footballing talent, the 14th version of the Chinese Super League finally gets under way today.
Website www.transfermarkt.com estimates that the 16 CSL clubs spent a total of US$411 million in the winter transfer window, which closed on Tuesday.
The result is that over the next nine months the skills of players such as Carlos Teves, Demba Ba, Oscar, Hulk, Ramires and Gervinho will be entertaining Chinese fans from Guangzhou in the south to Changchun in the northeast.
The quality on the bench is only a little less marked with Andre Villas-Boas at Shanghai SIPG, Manuel Pellegrini at Hebei China Fortune and Felix Magath at Shandong Luneng.
It is, though, Luiz Felipe Scolari, the World Cup-winning former Brazil coach, who will be favorite to land the title for the third year in a row at Guangzhou Evergrande in November.
The southern powerhouse was the first club to invest serious money in its team and the return has been six successive CSL titles, three of the first four coming with another World Cup winner in Marcello Lippi at the helm.
League and cup double winner last season, Scolari’s side opened its domestic campaign with a 1-0 victory in the Super Cup against last year’s CSL runner-up Jiangsu Suning in front of 50,000 fans in Chongqing two weeks ago.
While Guangzhou begins its title defense with a tough home fixture against Beijing Guo’an, Jiangsu’s trip to Shanghai on Sunday is perhaps more representative of the new era in Chinese football.
The Nanjing-based side, which features former Chelsea midfielder Ramires in the middle of the park and Colombia striker Jackson Martinez up front, will come up against Shanghai Shenhua’s multi-million dollar Argentine signing Tevez.
Although Tevez would seem certain to start up front, Shenhua’s Uruguayan coach Gus Poyet can select only three of the five foreign players in his squad after a rule change rushed through in January to curb the big spending by clubs.
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