Chinese Phoenix and Chinese Ballon d'Or (there has to be one decent player in a billion!)

[Surd]

Right, here we go. There are 7.5billion people on Earth. 20% of them live in China. You'd think one of them would've been the Ballon d'Or winner by now! And yes I realise a mix of sporting cultural importance over time, genetics, etc., but  what if China decided to focus its efforts on the world of football? What if they weren't there to take part in the world football, but to take over! Let's make this interesting.

So here is my challenge. Take a club at the bottom of the Chinese First division and lead them to producing the world's best player. Futhermore, and to add a bit of spice, to take a rejuvenated Chinese National Team to World Cup glory! I came in as create-a-club manager of Shenxin and changed up their branding, and took charge of the Chinese National Team. A team big in Asia, but a minnows outside of the continent. 

I made Shenxin, in reality a club recently dissolved in part due to the recent worldwide events, and gave them a new lease of life! They now have a Sugar Daddy backing them and a cracking youth academy and training facilities. Can they go from being here at the start of the game:

Firmly rooted to the bottom of the table. With this as their form:

And with a squad with potential (which I haven't mucked about with in the editor) but with only a few currently good enough for the First Division Chinese league:

Into a team producing the world's best player? Will they be the backbone of the National Squad?

Let's find out!

 

 

 

Edited August 13, 2020 by Surd

[Surd]

 

2019 Season 

End of the first season and ooooooooooh boy that was a close one. The team remained in the relegation zone for most of the season. But..... we survived.

We needed a win on the last day to avoid the drop, but due to how close it was at the bottom, that final win catapulted me from 14th to 11th, which in all honesty, made it sound like the season went better than it did! For reference, here is the position chart:

As you can see it was a close run thing! For wider, but more cluttered context, as you can see below, XJ TS Leopards and us swapped the bottom spot for a while, eventually pulling into the playoff zone before a final day 3-1 victory over Meizhou swapped us around and relegated the GD Southern Tigers and SC Utd to the playoffs. It was great timing as all of the teams above and around had a dramatic fall off in form right as we hit our stride.

 

Transfers

Most of this chart is me chopping the dead wood from the team. It also educated me in Chinese transfer policy. No more than 8 domestic signings per season. And do you know who the only players who want to join the club rooted to the bottom of the First Division are? Domestic players!!

WELL! That put a dent in things. Was it me? NO!!! The previous manager had signed 2 duds. I found a set of defenders who's deals collapsed due to this ruling, but we press on.

Nebijan was the best of this bunch, he became a rock in midfield, which desperately needed shoring up. He only scored one goal, but he was consistently above a 7 in form each match.

Not sure when the next round of prospects comes through in the Chinese league. Here's hoping they actually do and there isn't some mad setting ruling this whole process redundant!

Other business

Not much else to report, SJZ Ever Bright won the league with Beijing running away with the Super League (or as I now call it, the Promised Land).

The other banter news was who won player of the season in the First Division. Remember this lad?

Claiming to be 23 now. Always good to see Lazio's "17-year-old" cropping up. Nice to have a role model to witness achieving sporting success into his 60s.

Edited August 13, 2020 by Surd