Daniel Evensen

Tianjin I didn’t sleep at all the night before this one. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw visions of Hou Yu letting in 4 goals to Qingdao Hainiu in our last Chinese FA Cup match. I decided to start him anyway. We were at home this time around. It was an evening game, played in -4 Celsius conditions — a little bit too cold for football, in my opinion. Of course, it’s only going to get colder as the winter moves along. We’re only in early November, after all. Lee Jin-Yong got another start, though he was only able to give us a single half before he was too tired to go on. Of course, Charlotte had the official Yanji Lee Jin-Yong fan club out in full force, which accounted for a significant percentage of the 24,000 in attendance. I’m pretty sure I was more nervous than any of the boys. They were limber and stretching, and I was in the bathroom throwing up. Even Chairman Guo didn’t seem all that nervous. He watched the entire match from his private box, smoking a thick, leathery cigar, and flashing me a smile and a wink from time to time. It only took 18 minutes for Luciano Parra to give us our first goal, which was a header from close inside the penalty box. Guo Yi followed that up with a goal in the 24th minute, another shot from close range. And, amazingly, it turned out that those two goals were all that we needed. We came out victorious, winning 2-0. The truth is that we dominated the match. Our xG was 2.30, which dwarfed Tianjin’s pitiful 0.20. We had 55% of the possession, and we had an amazing 19 shots to their 3. I suppose I should be happy with Hou Yu for the good performance, though I honestly think it was due to our defense more than to any contribution on his part. I mean, he only faced 3 shots all game. A win is a win, though — and I’ll take this kind of win any day. A Fluke? Tianjin Manager and Director of Football Yu Genwei was back in the press after this one, telling anybody and everybody that they would have won the match 9 times out of 10. I was tempted to set the record straight in the papers, but decided not to play that game with him. Mark my words, though — we will ensure that Tianjin knows how good we are when we eventually face them again. Our next Chinese FA Cup opponent is none other than Jiangsu FC, who just so happen to be in our league. You might remember what happened the last time we faced them. Jiangsu managed to score 2 goals against us, one of which was an own goal by Aidan Quinn. Wu Ping was in goal that day, and our squad was a lot different. However, we still are in danger of losing. We’ll travel down to Nanjing for that match on January 2nd, right after the transfer window opens. That’s going to be an absolutely wild affair. Certain Victory Our next league opponent is Yantai Yintai, who are in last place and haven’t won a match yet this season. We’re going to win this match. I mean, the bookies have Yantai at 100-1 odds, for crying out loud. There is simply no way that we can lose this one.

Shanxi Longjin It won’t surprise you to learn that we beat Shanxi Longjin. However, this was another one of those games in which we fell asleep in the second half. We got out to a quick 1-0 lead behind a rare Fan Xiang goal, doubled it when Rovaglia scored in the 14th minute, and then saw Mr. Kwon score one in the 36th minute to put us up by three. And that’s all she wrote. I don’t know why, but these players seem to get goal shy every now and then. We’ve seen it happen a few times this season. Teams that we should be absolutely dominating on paper are able to fend off our attack enough to keep the scoreline somewhat reasonable. Mr. Kwon played well despite his upset feelings towards me. However, Pak Myong-Song wound up with the Player of the Match award, despite having 0 goals and 0 assists. I don’t really understand it, but I’m not going to complain. That makes 21 straight matches. We’ve scored 122 goals, which is off from the pace we were on before. The crazy thing is that we don’t have the most prolific goalscorer in the league, which is a bit counterintuitive. The Big One We’re back at home for our next match — a Chinese FA Cup game against Tianjin. Tianjin are in 7th place in the China Super League. This is our chance to show that we are just as good as the best teams in the country. The board and the press both expect us to win. I’m not quite as confident, to be honest. We have a good side, but I don’t think we’re quite good enough to compete at that level — not yet, at least. I’m also concerned that Huang Bowen is out with the flu, which means we’ll be missing some firepower up front. And, of course, this match comes only 3 days after our victory in Shanxi, which means that a number of our players will be tired. Tianjin’s Director of Football, Yu Genwei, told the press the day before the match that they plan to rotate their squad and play some of their younger players in this match. My hope is that Tianjin makes good on this threat and continues to underestimate our abilities. Otherwise, we might very well be looking at our first loss of the season tomorrow. Fasten your seatbelts for this one!

So Long, Qingdao Well, another day, another win. We made up for that poor looking 3-0 win the other day by smashing Qingdao on the road, 6-0. That makes 20 straight victories for us — but, hey, who’s counting? Luciano Parra wound up with 4 goals in this game. Song Wenjie came away with the Player of the Match award, however, after 1 goal and 2 assists. I would have given it to Parra, but they don’t ask me to make these decisions. This marks the 16th shutout we’ve had this season — all the more impressive when you consider that we haven’t yet decided on a full-time first choice goalkeeper. I think that problem will be solved soon, however. Trouble in Paradise Not all is well, however. Mr. Kwon came up to me with his agent a few days after that win against Qingdao FC. He was upset because he didn’t start. He expects to start in every possible game, regardless of his fitness level or the need for our other defensive midfielders to start. I knew this problem was going to come up as soon as I signed him. We’re going to have this problem with a number of players, actually. Too many of them looked at our squad when we courted them and concluded that they should be superstars. They can’t all be star players, and they’re going to need to learn how to share the load. Mr. Kwon’s form has been good lately, but I know that he has a problem with consistency. I need him rested up for big matches, and yet I worry that he will decide to simply not show up when we need him most. Fortunately, we do have other, better players ready to come in as soon as our current players start throwing a fit. That’s where money comes in handy. Shanxi Longjin We’re off to Shanxi for another away match that we should dominate again. I hope we don’t become too complacent, though. The match after this one is the big Chinese FA Cup tie against Tianjin. As much as I’d love to focus my efforts on that, we need to make sure we keep our winning streak alive.

More asymmetrical tactics please, if possible. I've got ideas for a future Hexagon Challenge save, and I'm hoping to make the tactical part as ridiculous as possible.

An update on the tactic quoted below. After 16 league games, we've scored a record 99 goals. Read more here. You can also watch on Youtube here, if you prefer that. I think it's a combination of good players, an excellent tactic, and a league that is really bad. Regardless, this is the craziest success I've ever had on FM. Thank you Knap! Also - for all the would-be naysayers, I do not believe that using downloaded tactics is "cheating," any more than using one of SI's tactic templates is "cheating." If you were to get a job as a football manager in real life, you probably wouldn't try to create a new tactic from scratch. You'd look around for something that works and would try to emulate it until you felt comfortable enough to branch out on your own. My save is a lot of fun, by the way. We've got a number of North Korean internationals, we have to use Chinese goalkeepers (and they all suck), and we've got matches every 2 to 3 days in this crazy custom database I randomly downloaded.

Signs of Weakness? We managed to beat Tai’an Tiankuang, but it wasn’t pretty at all. We didn’t score at all in the first half of this one. I think that’s the first time all year that we’ve been held scoreless in the first half. I was really starting to worry until Pietro Rovaglia finally connected for one at the start of the second half. We then had to rely on two penalties by Mr. Kwon to give us that 3-0 margin. It seriously was not a pretty match for us, and the offensive display really has made me worried. I mean, we dominated possession, we had 27 shots to their 7, and our xG rating was above 4 — but we still couldn’t manage to actually produce meaningful shots on target. I’m worried. Transfer Theory I think what is really happening here is that the league is divided into two general divisions: awful teams and mediocre teams. We’re apparently the best of the mediocre ones. Seriously — I refuse to believe that we are really a great team, particularly after our inability to score in this match. We’re just good at beating up on the dregs in the league, and are just a hair above being horrible to prevent us from being demolished. I’ve got a number of new players coming in on January 1st. I’m not going to stop there, either. I’ve instructed our scouts to scour East Asia for high quality teenagers, the sort of players who make their national teams — and especially the sort of players who are consistent, who aren’t injury prone, and who have good personalities. That shouldn’t be too hard, should it? Now, we do need to be careful. We’ve already got more than our share of foreign players at the club. We can only have 20 registered at a time, and we can only loan out 8 foreign-based players over the age of 22 at a time. In other words, if we wind up with too many old guys from foreign countries in the squad, some of them will likely wind up sitting around unregistered for matches. In theory, we could hope that some of our foreign players qualify for Chinese citizenship. In reality, though, it takes 1,825 days (about 6 years) for players to qualify for Chinese citizenship. In other words, that’s not an adequate short-term solution. Even with the money we’ve got, the best plan has got to be to target young players, get them in as young as possible, and go on from there. A foreigner who comes in at age 15 could become a Chinese citizen as early as age 21, and would be home grown at club to boot for potential future Champions League registration. In contrast, a foreigner who we sign in his early 30s would likely always take up a foreign slot on our roster, would end up declining, and would have to take up one of our outgoing loan slots if we were to loan him out. And this is why I’m not going to sign “high reputation” players. I just wish I could convince Chairman Guo. It makes perfect sense to me. Qingdao FC We’re back in Shandong Province again, this time to face Qingdao FC. This is another match that we should win easily. I hope we do. I’m starting to get worried.

A Little Scary Dalian Shide are a good team, and it showed in their match against us. Kim Kuk-Jin, who the coaches now say has that contagious fear of big matches, showed up for this one anyway. He scored a goal in the first 15 seconds to give us a big 1-0 lead. We then had 3 more goals from Guo Yi, who earned his first hat trick of the season — all in the first half. And, of course, Lee Jin-Yong was in the center of it all, making numerous incisive passes that cut apart the Dalian defense. Charlotte’s Lee Jin-Yong fan club went home happy and noisy. However, there were some problems. Huang Bowen had an awful game, and looked like he didn’t want to be out there at all. I wound up having to fine him for his awful work. Huang Jianwei came on at halftime, and contributed very little in his role in defense. Not only was he relatively ineffective, but he also handed Dalian a goal by fouling a Dalian player in the penalty box with about 25 minutes to go. We were still up 4-1 after the penalty, but I was starting to wonder where the magic went. November to Remember October was a good month for us. Here’s hoping that November will be even better. With 18 straight league wins, we’ve set all sorts of records. Too many records to report on, in fact. The easy way to think about it is that we’re basically going to set another record every single time we win a game. That will be particularly true if we can keep this winning streak alive. And I honestly don’t see any team in our league capable of beating us at this point. Financially, we’re still a rich club — but you knew that already. I still can’t spend the transfer budget fast enough, and Chairman Guo is still upset with me for not buying more high profile players. Speaking of Chairman Guo, I had another one of those smoke-filled room meetings with him. He told me that he’s chiefly impressed that I’ve got such strong backing from the squad, despite the fact that they come from such a variety of countries and backgrounds. As far as the matches are concerned, though, he’s still not all that impressed. Not angry, but not beaming with joy, either. The fans are much the same: happy with the tactics, happy to see players playing well, and somewhat lukewarm on our results. Our performance analysts put together a few mildly interesting reports. Our defensive midfielders, for example, continue to lead the league in just about every category, though their pass completion rate is a bit below average. They make up for this by making progressive passes that move us forward rather than just passing the ball around in circles. Our goal output is obviously a huge outlier in the league. We score far more goals per game than anybody else, and no club is better at preventing goals than we are. And, of course, that’s because of our excellent defense, which usually stamps out scoring opportunities before they even begin. We face something like 4 shots per game and allow around 5% to score, which is insane. It’s good and all — but it could be better. Morale Morale is at an all-time high. I mean, that’s going to happen when you win 18 in a row, regardless of the league you play in. Fan Xiang, our captain, is still clearly established as a team leader. Ye Jie, our vice captain, is highly influential, and Pak Myong-Song, the North Korean international fullback, has also become highly influential. Han Jin is the most influential of the other players, which goes to show you just how important our Three Muskateers are to this squad. We’ll hold onto them as long as we can, though I do worry that Fan Xiang, Ye Jie, and Han Jin will turn into fringe players once we move on. Our social groups have also changed. Jonovic is still hanging out with the North Koreans, but Kim Kuk-Jin has apparently started hanging out with the Three Muskateers in the “normal” social group. Now, I’ll warn you here: I’ve got so many transfers scheduled for January that we’re probably going to wind up destroying what little cohesion and good morale we currently have. I’ve got a funny feeling that a number of our players will find themselves out of a place, and we’ll probably end up maximizing the number of players we can have out on loan. Nothing destroys a winning team quite like a nosy manager with a lot of money! Tai’an Tiankuang We’re hosting Tai’an next, in another game that we should win. Tai’an is a smallish city (population of “only” 5.7 million) near Tai Mountain in Shandong Province. They’ve played a bit over their heads this season, but I’ve got a feeling that we’re about to help them return to earth.

We Win Again Well, we won another one by a 7-0 scoreline. Mr. Kwon wound up with two goals, but Luciano Parra wound up being the hero. Parra had 1 goal, 2 assists, and a number of other key passes, and simply ran Zibo ragged. That makes 10 road wins in a row for us, and means that the dream season continues. We’ll see how long we can keep this up. We’re also one win away from setting the record for this division with 18. It’s not a great record, of course, since it stems from the days of much smaller leagues in the Chinese third tier. With 23 clubs and 44 games, most clubs will win more than 18. But it’s still a nice record to have. Homecoming The female part of our fan base will be out in full force for this next match. That’s right: Lee Jin-Yong is coming back for his first home game after his injury. And, as predicted, Charlotte has the Lee Jin-Yong fan club ready in full force. I think he’ll be able to stay out there for the full match this time around. We’ll see how he looks. We certainly could use him, at any rate. Looking to the Future Han Songfeng, my assistant manager, stopped me in the hall the other day to talk about two players he thought I should pay more attention to. The first is Zhu Bin, a 15-year-old kid from the remote city of Jiamusi up in eastern Heilongjiang Province. It’s so far to the east that it’s practically in Russia, and it’s several hundred kilometers north of Vladivostok. Needless to say, Zhu Bin isn’t going to be scared of the Yanji winter! Zhu Bin is quick, is training quite well, and looks like he might be a great attacking left winger for us. He’s so good, in fact, that I’m starting to wonder whether I should bring him up to the first team squad in January to give him a try. Han Songfeng thinks that Zhu Bin isn’t quite as good as the 28-year-old Han Jin at the moment, but noted that he’s close. Given how poor our competition has been this season, it might be worth it to give him some game time and see how he develops. The second youngster is Yan Kun, and there’s an interesting story behind him. Our scouts told me about Yan Kun at Jiangsu FC right after we beat them. You’ll remember that game — that was that narrow 3-2 win we had at the start of the season, the one and only game in the league that we almost lost. Anyway, it turns out that I bought their star 20-year-old central defender for 4 million RMB after that match, and promptly put him in the under-21s team and forgot about him. Yan Kun isn’t as good as our star central defenders. However, he is big. I mean, he’s a giant: 196 centimeters and 93 kilograms, by far the biggest player on our squad. Now, he is slow with all that weight — but does that really matter for a center back? He’s also got a great personality and a really good attitude. With all the improvement he’s been showing in training, it might be time to pull him up to the first team when January rolls around. In other words, we may have already found a replacement for Ye Jie, just in case he gets upset again. Dalian Shide We host 4th place Dalian Shide next. This is match that we might lose, even though everybody thinks we will win. Dalian has a good team and has been in good form lately. We’re scheduled to face a number of good sides in the coming weeks. I think a lot of our recent success has been due to having poor competition, and not really because we are an overwhelmingly dominant team. Only time will tell, of course.

Kim Yong-Il After writing him off as too inconsistent for our team, Kim Yong-Il worked hard to show me up. We were going to win against Ningxia — we knew that coming in. We won decisively, though, putting out a 7-0 total that left no doubt about our abilities. Kim Yong-Il ended the match with 2 goals and 2 assists, showing me that he really deserves to continue starting on the attacking right winger side of things. He thinks he’s a striker, and I thought he’s a striker, but it turns out that he plays best as a winger. Who would have thought it? There was no goal for Lee Jin-Yong, though Charlotte seemed happy to see her favorite back on the pitch. We’re going to hold him back until our next home match, after which he should be fit enough to play regularly again. Records Our run of good form continues. We’ve scored an amazing 99 goals in only 16 matches this season, and are on pace to break all sorts of records. It’s not that we’ve only beaten poor teams, either. Beijing University were competing with us for first place at the beginning of the season, and we only beat them by a 2-0 margin. We’ve also had to deal with fatigue issues and everything else that comes with having games every 3 to 4 days. The scorelines have been impressive. We won one match by a 10-0 margin, another by a 9-1 margin, 3 matches by 8-0 scores, and two more by 7-0. You can add in two 6-0 victories on that list, though it almost feels like an insult once you get to such a meager output by us. The only close match we’ve had so far was that 3-2 match against Jiangsu. That was the one that convinced me that Wu Ping really wasn’t ready to play at goal for us. He’s back in goal now, though, and looks better than ever. Zibo We’re off to Zibo in Shandong Province to play Zibo Qisheng. Zibo, a semi-professional team, are currently in 8th place. We need to play well if we’re going to keep this run of good form.

Yeah, I'm not sure what more I can do to make them happy. Oh well.

Signs of Weakness We beat the Qingdao Red Lions, 5-1. I’m worried, though. We scored all 5 goals in the first half, and basically coasted from there. Luciano Parra had yet another hat trick, scoring all 3 goals within the first 21 minutes. The only goal we gave up was a penalty. It was Ye Jie’s fault. His foul in the penalty box was silly and needless. It’s not exactly endearing to me, and makes me feel less likely to give him the extra playing time that he was moping about the other day. But it’s the offense that I’m really worried about. We need to remember to finish off strong. Return of the King Charlotte seemed happier than usual. I bet you can guess why. I tried to delay the news for as long as I could, but the press got word of Lee Jin-Yong’s recovery the other day. He’s not entirely recovered from the broken ribs, but he’s good enough to start. We’re going to put him out there in our next match and will see how things go. The Lee Jin-Yong fan club is in full force, awaiting his first home performance. Of course, we’re going to be on the road for our next match, visiting lovely Ningxia, far to the west. Ningxia Renhaixi We’re expected to win, of course. Charlotte is going to attend the match with me. I knew she wanted to see our babyfaced beauty’s return. When I asked if she could use club funds to go, Chairman Guo’s only reponse was to insist that we fly first class and stay away from any nosy reporters.

A man of culture, I see! I'm also waiting (somewhat) patiently for Oceania and the Caribbean so I can start a big Hexagon Challenge save. At the slow rate I play, that should keep me busy until FM25 is out, lol.

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Critics I saw before the Beijing Baxy match that the critics among our fanbase were back up on Weibo, trying to find things to nitpick about. One overzealous fan said that I’d better have a good reason for starting 22-year-old striker Huang Bowen. I do have a good reason for starting him. He’s our best goal scorer. After 14 league matches (including today’s win), Huang Bowen leads the squad with 14 goals and 4 assists. It’s even more impressive when you realize that he’s started only 7 games and has come on as a substitute in only 3 others. Luciano Parra, the 19-year-old Chilean Hat Trick Machine, has started in 8 matches, netting 13 goals and 2 assists. He’s got the flare, but Huang Bowen’s got the talent. I’m having a hard time envisioning any scenario in which I wouldn’t start Huang Bowen, assuming he was healthy enough. Meanwhile, Kim Yong-Il has been rotting away on our bench. Beijing Baxy That’s right — we won again. We only put 6 past them this time, though, which is a bit of a disappointment. Most of our scoring took place in the first half hour of the match. Once we were up 5-0 we essentially drifted away into complacency. Liu Yue managed to get the man of the match today, though it could have been anybody. He also managed to win the player of the week, though just about anybody on our side could have won that award as well. Pietro Rovaglia, who is starting to become upset that I’m not treating him like the star he thinks he is, managed to get another goal in this one. That makes 8 goals in 8 appearances for the 21-year-old, whose only failing is that he’s not as fancy and as consistent as Parra and Huang. I suppose the most shocking part of the match was Stefan Jonovic scoring his first goal for the club. I guess I should play him more often, though it’s hard to find a spot for him among all of our good young players. In truth, the most help he provides to us is social support for our DPRK contingent. Anyway, as I mentioned before, that makes 14 straight league wins in a row, with no sign of slowing down. Big Spender You’d think that Chairman Guo would be thrilled with our success. If that’s the case, you simply don’t know Chairman Guo. He doesn’t hang around the clubhouse often, but he was there a few days ago for our staff meeting. He kind of barged in unannounced, which scared me. You see, I normally conduct staff meetings with a bunch of grunts and nods. The coaches and staff members come to me with their suggestions, and I usually approve them without much thought — assuming that they’re not totally ridiculous, of course. I learned a long time ago that grunting, nodding, and delegating all but the most essential tasks is the northeast Chinese way. Of course, the problem is that you never know what the big boss thinks about your habits. Chairman Guo asked me into his office afterwards, and I thought he was going to chew me out for my inattentive managerial style. I was surprised by what he said. “Why haven’t you spent the transfer budget yet?!” he demanded in a scratchy voice and a harsh, almost guttural northeastern Chinese tone. “Sir, umm, well, you see…” I hemmed and hawed, looking for an escape. “Perhaps 300 million RMB was too much?” His eyes were firey and his face was demanding. “Well, sir, you see… At our level, it’s not easy to find pla—” He cut me off before I could finish. “Oh, it’s a scout problem, is that right? We can get you a new scouting team if you want. I’ll make it happen right away.” That wasn’t going to help, of course. The real problem is our reputation, not the quality of the scouting team or the amount of money in the bank. “No need,” I said quickly. “We’ll manage. I’ve got a plan, and I’ll spend the money. You’ll see.” That got me out of the meeting, but didn’t solve the problem. We’re simply not at the level yet where we can buy expensive players for massive amounts of money. I do have a large group of new players ready to come in during the winter transfer season, which will help a little bit. I just hope that our scouts can find us somebody good that is actually worth the money. As nice as it is to play for a billionaire, I’m also not in the mood to make stupid financial decisions that could hurt the club in the long run. We’ll also eventually need to figure out how to convince other clubs to take some of our surplus players on loan. After all, we can only register 50. I never thought having a big transfer budget would wind up being a problem. Qingdao Red Lions We’re back home again, this time to face the Qingdao Red Lions. The Red Lions aren’t a great side. We should dominate this match without any problems.

Domination Well, we dominated again, this time winning 6-0 in front of a crowd of less than 400. I’m not quite sure how the finances in this division work. You’d think that most of these clubs would need actual fans to show a profit. Anyway, whatever. Huang Bowen was our best player. The media still think that he’s heading out the door, though I doubt it. He’s played well, and will continue to start as long as he keeps playing like this. Kim Yong-Il, on the other hand, is turning into a bench warmer. Huang Bowen received a bonus for hitting his 10th league goal this season. Chairman Guo gave him a check for 620,000 RMB. It means nothing to Chairman Guo, of course. I hope it means something to Huang Bowen. We really could use him kicking around the place. Drama No, this isn’t about my wife and Lee Jin-Yong. He’s going to be out for a few more days; those stories can wait. This time it’s about Ye Jie, who is upset that he’s no longer a star. Ye Jie has been starting regularly, but is clearly not good enough to start every match for us. I tried to get Fan Xiang to calm him down, but Ye Jie wouldn’t hear any of it. Ye Jie asked me what the problem was. I tried to tell him that he’s a bit older than the other players, that he doesn’t quite have the same potential, and that we need him more for leadership than for his playing ability. That got him upset, of course. He told me that he wants to play more often, and threatened a move to Hong Kong if I didn’t comply. There wasn’t much more I could do than reiterate what I had just told him. Surprisingly, it worked. He calmed down and apologized. We’ll see how long this lasts, however. It’s not good for us to have players in leadership positions who are not likely to play. We’ve got far too many players who expect to be stars anyway. I need to sit down one of these days and actually sort that stuff out. Maybe I’ll do it later. Wu Ping Well, we did it. We signed Wu Ping to a new contract. It’s for 50,000 RMB per week, which is kind of high for somebody who is only 15 years old and has no self confidence. I’ve also moved him up to the first team, and am trying to find a suitable mentorship group for him. If he’s going to stay at the club, we might as well figure out a way to cheer him up a bit. The fans can see his talent, of course. They just don’t know what he’s really like. Beijing Baxy Beijing Baxy are going to be our next victims. Beijing Baxy are as semi-professional side with no money and no talent. If we don’t win this match, we are really in serious trouble. The papers are playing this up as the match of the day, which is hilarious. We should score at least 7.

We Allowed A Goal Yeah, yeah, we won 9-1. Yeah, yeah, it was a dominating performance. I know all that already. But the problem here is that we allowed a goal. Pietro Rovaglia had a hat trick this time around in our dominating win. He could have scored 6, actually, if he remembered how the offsides rule works. This is why Parra has had more game time. Anyway, we’ve now won 12 straight, and aren’t showing any signs of stopping. We’ve set numerous records already, and we’re only 12 games into a 46 game season. That’s right — you’re going to have a lot more of this to read as we move forward. Song Wenjie was injured, but I’m not worried about that. We’ve got a lot of depth at both right back and left back. The only problem we have is in goal. Goalkeeper Crisis You don’t believe me, do you? We’ve given up only 3 goals in 12 league matches, and have scored 75. I know that looks like a good record, even if you do consider the fact that we gave up 6 goals in 2 Chinese FA Cup matches. But it is a crisis. Believe me. I’m starting to hear rumblings about the crisis in the squad. It hasn’t become a huge problem yet, but there are players here and there who are concerned. You won’t see it in public, but they will tell you in private that they think we lack depth. Of the goalkeepers currently owned by the club, the one with the highest asking price is Peng Peng. He’s on loan at Kunshan FC in the Chinese Super League, who wanted to loan him back right after we signed him. I was a bit too hasty with that signing, and failed to note his consistency issues. He’s also played quite poorly so far this season, which does not bode well for his future. The board, by the way, is furious about me signing him. After that is Hou Yu, who is on my bad list after giving up those 4 ridiculous goals to Qingdao Hainiu the other day. I really don’t want to start Hou Yu again. I’m hoping to put off having grey hair for a few more years, thank you very much. We’re starting Zhang Yan now, who the coaches say doesn’t have the required ability or potential for our squad. And that leaves… well, nobody. I mean, we could bring up Wu Ping, if we really wanted. He’s the 15-year-old who has low self belief but high ability. Maybe we could set up a mentoring unit for him. Other than Wu Ping, the closest we have to anything is Sun Ya’nan. And he’s a long way off from the first team. We paid quite a bit for Sun Ya’nan, by the way. It’s worth it for us to invest in his future. But, yeah, he’s not at the level we need him to be at right now to offer us much. The scouts haven’t found many other Chinese goalkeepers worth our while, unfortunately. Actually, with all the money Chairman Guo has, I’m tempted to throw it all around, buy up every Chinese goalkeeper, and then loan them back out to their parent clubs at a profit. Of course, that could backfire. Fan Xiang Transfer Drama It’s not really much of a drama, actually. Fan Xiang doesn’t seem to want to go. However, Kitchee in Hong Kong really want him. The first offer was for 630,000 RMB, which is a joke. I turned that one down right away. The next one came in right afterwards, this time for 1,300,000 RMB. I turned that one down as well, but am going to keep an eye on the situation to see what comes of it. Sure enough, Kitchee were right back in it, this time with a 1,800,000 RMB offer. After I turned that one down, they came right back at me with a 2,750,000 RMB offer, which is about double what his estimated transfer value is. I’ll be honest with you — part of me wants to sell him off while his value is high. Fan Xiang is a great leader, but he doesn’t have the ability to perform well for us at the next tier up. But I’m not going to sell him for money that we don’t need. I mean, you don’t come across a good homegrown born leader every day. I’d much rather have him stay on as a fringe player as we improve. That reminds me — Eastern apparently are interested in buying Ye Jie as well. Ye Jie is another player I would secretly like to sell, but I’m not convinced that I should break up the Three Musketeers so early in my career. More Inner Mongolia Fun We’re back to Inner Mongolia, this time to take on Neimenggu Caoshangfei. They have a poor team, and we are setting records like it’s going out of style. This should be pretty easy.

Close Call I thought we were going to lose against Qingdao Hainiu. The casuals loved it, but the coaches hated it. This was one of those goal-heavy matches that would make any coach hate his defense. Luciano Parra is a great striker. We knew that already, of course. But he really proved his greatness in this one, scoring twice before even 10 minutes were up. Guo Yi scored a third in the 11th minute, and I thought we were home free. Qinghao has a good team, however. Hayllan, their star striker, got a hat trick before all was said and done, and we were really in danger of losing in the first part of the second half. Huang Bowen came alive for us, scoring two late goals and rewarding my faith in him. I really was a fool for signing Kim Yong-Il, wasn’t I? Huang Bowen has the potential to be a great star for us for years to come, and we should really look to build on his abilities. We wound up with a 6-4 victory. Hou Yu, our first-choice goalkeeper, really disappointed me in this match. I let him know how I felt, fining him and scolding him for doing a bad job. I think he will find himself in the backup role. We do have a few young goaltenders that I’m looking at, though I don’t think they’re ready yet. As for now, that Chinese goalkeeper requirement is really not treating us well. I guess you would look at the match and say that we were in control the whole time. I felt differently. We really need to improve if we’re going to play against better competition, and it’s clear to me now that the teams we’ve been playing so far have been too easy for us. And you thought this was going to be an easy year! Team Outing It’s October, which means it’s time for the Chinese National Day holidays. Anybody who has lived in China knows that “Golden Week,” usually from October 1 to October 7, is the best time to go out and explore. We took a trip to the most interesting historical place in town: the Memorial of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea. I was worried that the newspapers would make a big deal out of the American manager taking his squad to visit a museum devoted to the “other side” of the Korean War. The politics never really came up, however. Instead, we found ourselves in a mostly empty museum, looking at statues of old Communist leaders and trying to read the misspelled English captions inside darkened rooms. The ceilings were blackened from decades of cigarette smoke, ostensibly due to numerous party leaders making official visits. It was an interesting museum nevertheless, even with the heavy propagandistic overtones. And it was right next to the Yalu River shoreline, which was the most interesting part. Interesting Friends After our trip, I noticed that Stefan Jonovic was hanging out with the North Koreans in a small pack, away from the other players. I haven’t talked much about Jonovic, mostly because he hasn’t really played much. He’s an Serbo-Austrian centerback, 26 years old, an extremely determined player with a great attitude and the ability to be a leader. We think that he’ll be good enough to play with us for two years or so, after which we’ll likely move him on. For now, though, we really haven’t even needed to play him. He’s been injured, and, well, there have been better choices at centerback. But the most interesting thing about him is that he has managed to crack into the otherwise impenitrable North Korean social group. He doesn’t even seem to mind the aggressive looking “bodyguards,” dressed in all black, who insist on sticking with our three first team North Koreans everywhere they go. They all seem to get along, which is hilarious considering that Jonovic doesn’t speak a word of Korean and clearly has no interest in learning. Don’t ask me how they communicate. Now, I don’t really care about his political beliefs, and I do hope that he is able to help integrate them with the rest of the squad. Still, I’ve got a lot of questions about this social group. China Locomotive We’re playing China Locomotive on the road next. China Locomotive plays in Tianjin, not too far away from Beijing. They’re in 21st place, which means we’re likely to win this match no matter what happens. If we don’t win, Chairman Guo will have his revenge.

Slow Start We won again. We won 8-0 again, as a matter of fact. But it wasn’t as smooth as it should have been. I’m not happy with how we played in the first half. It took us 26 minutes to score, which is inexcusable for a match in which we scored 8 times. We also let Jiangsu have far too many shots on goal throughout the match. I was worried for a while that our clean sheet streak was going to be snapped. Huang Bowen got the start up front again. He scored twice, and came tantalizingly close to a hat trick, but just couldn’t get it over the line. Tang Xincheng, our attacking right winger, wound up earning the player of the match plaudits. He had a good game and deserved it. Mr. Kwon, meanwhile, seemed to disappear for most of the match. I’m worried that his inconsistency is acting up again. I’m probably the only manager in the world who feels frustrated after an 8-0 victory. I had a surprise press interview not long after the match. Xu Di of the China Daily wanted to know if I thought we could keep the unbeaten run going. It’s probably not auspicious to respond directly to questions like that, but I let him know what I was thinking. I told him that I thought we had a great squad with great players, but that I was also seeing the beginning signs of complacency. We haven’t gelled together as a cohesive unit quite yet, and I worry that our success might lead to a sudden downward swing if we’re not careful. I do hope we can keep it up, though. Month In Review We’re already up to October 2022. The economy hasn’t recovered, but at least our squad is doing well financially. Chairman Guo seems happy with the finances. He hasn’t felt the need to throw more transfer budget money at us yet, at least. He still wants us to sign more high profile players, which isn’t going to be possible for a little while. As long as my job is secure, I don’t really care if he feels upset or not. Oh, by the way — we’ve set a few records already. Our 66 goals so far in the campaign has set a league record, as well as a club record. Pretty impressive when you consider that we’re not even halfway through the season yet. We’ve also set a record by going six matches without conceding. Even still, I’m hearing a lot of discontented rumblings about not having strong enough players in goal. Hou Yu had a few good saves in the last match, but he also made me feel a little bit on edge at other times. Our other attacking statistics at the end of September are somewhat odd. We tend to dribble more than other teams, and yet are fouled more as well. I think this is simply because we wind up with more possession, mostly because we have better players. I tend to think of Mr. Kwon as our great passing presence in the midfield, but it seems that the Frenchman Paul Wade is just a bit more accurate. Meanwhile, youngster Borja Calvo is our best creative midfielder, again beating Mr. Kwon out by a large margin. We score a lot of goals and give up very few goals. Naturally, we are at the top of the league. It’s hard to predict how we’ll measure up once we’re promoted, however. Now, with all of that, you’d think the board would love me, right? Wrong. The board are somewhat pleased with our results, but are not over the top. They’ve given me a “C+” for the month. I’m baffled by this, and have no idea what I would need to do to get a better grade. The supporters have apparently given me a “B” grade, which I also find baffling. Are they upset by the three 8-0 victories? Should we give a few of those goals back? Finally, the Three Musketeers of Fan Xiang, Ye Jie, and Han Jin continue to maintain order in the squad. As I’ve said before, we’ve got a lot of players from a lot of different countries, and we’re still struggling to work together as a cohesive unit. Those three have done an excellent job at maintaining law and order, and have prevented things from becoming too strange. The Third Musketeer I suppose I should introduce you to Ye Jie, the third of our amazing Chinese trio. Ye Jie is yet another one of our players who really should be playing at a higher level. He’s 27 years old, a native of Jilin, China, and is Han Chinese, slightly different from our ethnic Korean Chinese contingent. He’s been with the club all his life, and would be the captain if Fan Xiang weren’t also here. His performance so far has been nothing short of sensational, though I think this is because he simply shouldn’t be playing at such a low level. I do worry about his dislike of big matches, however — a problem he shares with Han Jin. We can move forward with him for now, but this may become a problem when we start moving up the ladder. Of course, by that time Ye Jie will probably be a bit too old for my purposes anyway. We’ll see. The Test Only three days after that victory, we’ve got to go down to Qingdao for another Chinese FA Cup match. We’re facing Qingdao Hainiu, who are one tier above us and have been in incredible form so far this season. The bookmakers think we’re a cinch to win it, but I wouldn’t be so sure. We had a rough time in our last Chinese FA Cup match, and I worry about our fitness levels. I don’t think Chairman Guo would behead me if we lost this match. I just hope I don’t have to find out.

No Contest Well, we did it again. We demolished the Taiyuan Institute of Technology, winning 8-0. We managed to bring the score up to 7-0 before the end of the first half. I started to worry in the second half, though, as our goal scoring suddenly stopped. Liu Yue finally finished off his hat trick in the 91st minute, however, and we put them away for good. Taiyuan managed 8 shots, which is more than I would like to give up. Hou Yu was equal to the task, though he did seem a little bit wobbly at times. We really ought to prevent the ball from even reaching him. I guess I shouldn’t complain due to our dominance; however, we are going to need a defensive upgrade before we start facing fiercer competition. Liu Yue was easily the man of the match, and picked up a player of the week award as well. I always wonder whenever any players from any other teams win player of the week, by the way. Our boys are so good that they simply shouldn’t be playing at this level. It won’t come as any surprise to you that our attacking is far above and beyond everybody else in the league. The defending has also been superb, aside from those two fluke goals against Jiangsu, of course. We are simply a good team, and we continue to put out quality results. I am concerned about Kim Yong-Il, though. He had a very quiet game, scoring an early goal and largely disappearing afterwards. My gut tells me that Huang Bowen should be starting more frequently up front. We just need Mr. Huang to stop freaking out about the fact that there are other strikers on the team. Invincible? That makes 10 wins in a row, by the way. We’ve won three matches this season by 8-0 margins, one by 7-0, one by 10-0, three more by 4-0, and one by a 2-0 margin. Only Jiangsu managed to score two goals against us, and both were flukes against a 15-year-old goalkeeper who seems to be clinically depressed. I’d say that’s a pretty good run of form. The board doesn’t seem to agree. I’m not sure if the problem is the quality of the opposition or the fact that we’re not scoring 30 goals a match. Whatever the reason is, Chairman Guo always seems to have something to criticize. For example, the 2-0 win against Beijing University, who are second in the league and the only team that mounts any sort of challenge to us, led to quite a bit of criticism from him. He told me that we should have won by a bigger margin against a team that is supposedly inferior. I’m not sure what more we can do other than win — but, then again, when you have that kind of money I guess you’re not easily impressed. Chairman Guo also didn’t think much of our earlier 4-0 win against Shaanxi, and gave us “B-” grades for the 8-0 demolishing of both Taiyuan and Jingchuang-Xian. And that 10-0 domination on the road against Qinghai? That got a straight “B.” And don’t even get me started on how upset he is that we’re not signing Haaland, Mbappe, and the rest. There’s simply no reasoning with Chairman Guo on that issue. If he doesn’t have the best, he won’t be happy, and that’s that. North Korean Flair We’ve got another DPRK international to introduce you to. His name is Pak Myong-Song (박명송), and he’s a 28-year-old fullback who is one of the mainstays of the squad. Pak defies all stereotypes about North Korea as being a “hermit country.” He’s 6’0”, tall and lanky, in excellent shape, and has 23 caps to his name. He’s absolutely solid, with an excellent, determined personality, and is a natural leader on a squad full of leaders. He hails from Pyongyang, which means that there are certainly political connections in his past. It doesn’t seem to affect his persona much, though. He gets along just fine with our other Koreans, including the other DPRK nationals, the South Koreans, and our young Chinese-Korean players. Statistically speaking, Pak is league ahead of every other defender in our league. That’s no surprise, of course — just about everybody that we have is yards ahead of the competition. We also picked him up for a song - under 200,000 RMB. You can find quite a few good players if you’re not above scouting the DPRK national team. He’ll be around for a little while. I’m not sure if we’ll hold on to him once we finally make the Champions League in a few years, but we’ll see what happens. Charlotte doesn’t care much for Mr. Pak, by the way. She’s too focused on finding Lee Jin-Yong’s hospital. Jiangsu Nantong We’re hosting Jiangsu Nantong next. Like Jiangsu FC, this is a club headquartered in the city of Nanjing. They’ve played better than expected so far, and are in 6th place. Having said all that, we should win this one easily. Lee Jin-Yong won’t play, of course. Aside from him, we should be up to full strength.

More Dominance This is probably the only team in the world that could win 8-0 and still make me feel nervous. We dominated in our trip to Gansu Province — of course we did. Everybody knew we were going to win. Luciano Parra had his third hat trick of the young season. Huang Bowen had two goals, and was tantalizingly close to scoring a third. Borja Calvo scored two from defensive midfield, and Mr. Kwon managed to score yet another one of his specialties. But it took us 22 minutes to score the first goal, and the second didn’t come until the game was a half hour old. I started to wonder if I had brought the wrong team along with me. We dominated as we should have, but, boy, we could have played better. The Streak Don’t look now, but we’ve won 10 matches in a row. 9 of them have come in the league. One came in the Chinese FA Cup first round, and that was against a team in the Chinese Super League. We’ve only given up 4 goals, and 2 of those came in that Chinese FA Cup tie. We’ve had 8 clean sheets from 3 goalkeepers, and yet most of the boys are whispering in worried tones about how we lack depth in goal. I think we’ve got a great club. Why does it feel like it’s not as good as it could be, though? Morale Issues We all seem to be happy. Well, almost all of us. Huang Bowen is still upset. I’m not sure what to do for him, either. He’s gone public with his frustration over me signing Kim Yong-Il. Not even the fact that Huang Bowen has made more appearances than Kim Yong-Il (6 to 3) and has scored more goals (6 to 1) can appease him. Kim Yong-Il hasn’t lived up to his reputation for us so far, and I am starting to regret the signing. However, all of this nonsense has me wondering about how professional Huang Bowen really is. I can’t do anything else in this situation other than give him the playing time that he wants. If he’s not happy with that, I really don’t have any answers. He might look grumpy when he sees me, and he might spend more time talking with the press than I would like, but at least Huang Bowen is getting it done in our matches. I know I can rely on him, which is more than I can say for Kim Yong-Il and his tendency to run away when the going gets tough. It’s not easy, even when you are undefeated. Young Viking One of the key signings that has gotten us this far was Kristoffer Paulsen, our 18-year-old Norwegian central defender. We signed him from Viking FK for almost nothing — only 1 million RMB. And he’s been absolutely incredible for us, performing as arguably one of the best defensive players in the third tier. Stavanger, Norway, is certainly a long way away from Yanji, China. It’s a bit colder in Yanji, though, and the local economy is not quite as developed as Norway’s. Still, he seems to feel at home with the side, and has been playing well. Charlotte doesn’t care much for him, of course. She tells me that we Western men all look alike anyway. Taiyuan University of Technology We’re off to face another university team, which should mean another win for us. Taiyuan are in 14th place and aren’t playing all that well. If we lose this match, then something is simply not right in the world.

Laughter I think we can safely say that we have a better team than Qinghai Oulu Institute. This match wasn’t even close. It took us 22 minutes to score the first goal. By the time the dust had cleared, we had 10 goals to our credit against 0 by Qinghai. Han Jin scored four, and young North Korean striker Kim Kuk-Jin had 3 as well. We scored 3 of our goals on penalties, proving that Qinghai couldn’t touch us even if they tried to break the rules. I’m seriously starting to wonder why we can’t just be promoted now and be done with it. We’ve now got 42 goals in 8 matches in the league, and are comfortably in first place despite having a game in hand over most of the other teams. Han Jin Well, after his surprise hat trick, I think it’s time to introduce you to Han Jin. Like Fan Xiang, Han Jin is one of those players that I normally wouldn’t want to start. The coaches have reminded me that he doesn’t like to play in big matches, which isn’t going to work for our club in the long run. We’re a big match club, and we’re going to play in a lot of big matches in the future, and anybody who doesn’t like it is going to have to leave. Mr. Han is 28 years old, a native of Yanji, and from a local ethnic Korean family. He is also an extremely professional player, always dressing nice, always showing up early to every event, and always courteous and respectful to everybody he speaks with. The Koreans traditionally refer to themselves with phrases such as “동방예의지국” (東方禮儀之國 in 한자), which I translate loosely as “The country of courteous people in the East.” I don’t know if that counts for all Koreans in general, and it certainly doesn’t apply to the political leaders in North Korea. However, when it comes to Han Jin, this is absolutely the case. He’s as courteous and polite as they come, and is an absolute joy to be around. Which means that Charlotte wants nothing to do with him, of course. He’s just not as handsome as Lee Jin-Yong, I’m afraid. Anyway, Han Jin is an excellent leader for our team. When placed together with Fan Xiang and Ye Jie, Han Jin helps to form our own version of Les Trois Mousquetaires (The Three Musketeers). I just hope it will be enough to keep the egos in this squad at bay. Jingchuan County We might as well stay in the west. We’re playing in Gansu Province this time against Jingchuan County, a team located in the city of Dingxi. I’ll be frank with you. I speak Chinese fluently, have lived in the country for several years, and consider myself knowledgeable in Chinese cultural and historical matters. And even I’ve never heard of Dingxi. They expect us to pound the living daylights out of Jingchuan, and I think we’ll do that regardless of who we put out on the pitch.

Should have responded to this earlier - my apologies. The database I'm using is really interesting. It includes numerous defunct Chinese teams that have been brought back to life. I was excited when I saw Yanbian FC on the list — but was then horrified when I realized that the database creator also saddled the team with €30 million worth of debt. As much fun as it is to play with a huge amount of debt and no money, I think I had my share with Ingolstadt. I made a few, umm, executive decisions in the pregame editor, including messing around with a foreground "rich benefactor," which just isn't as much fun as the old "sugar daddy" term. Of course, the board and fans hate me for not signing high profile players, which is kind of hard to do when you're so far down the pecking order. I did give Yanbian a bit more reputation, but it didn't make much of a difference. Once we've been promoted once or twice, things are bound to get interesting. I'm particularly interested in seeing how we fare in European competition when we can only use Chinese goalkeepers. And, yes, we will be able to play in European competition. The database I found on Steam was prefixed by "入歐," or "enter Europe." I thought at first that it was some sort of AFC revamp to resemble UEFA more closely, but it turned out to provide a path for Chinese teams to play in Europe. It's a silly idea, but there's a lot of potential there. Big thanks to the random Chinese person who created and shared the database! I just hope it's stable in the late game, lol.

Over the Hump It wasn’t pretty, but we managed to pull it off. Tang Xincheng scored our first goal against Beijing University in the 5th minute. It wasn’t exactly smooth sailing from there, though. We had a few good chances, but were rebuffed by a good defensive effort from the students. Mr. Kwon took a penalty in the 44th minute which the Beijing University keeper saved. Kwon tried to shoot it in again from an angle, but wound up hitting the side bar. He had a particularly poor game; I’m wondering if he wasn’t still ruing his red card in the Chinese FA Cup match. We finally scored again in the 72nd minute. Centerback Kristoffer Paulsen headed in a free kick, and that was that. The 2-0 victory wasn’t as dominant as our other victories have been. At least we didn’t lose, though. The Leader We’ve all got our own favorite players, I suppose. Charlotte has given up on watching our current team entirely. She prefers to spend her days scouring the Yanji hospitals with the other ladies in the Lee Jin-Yong fan club. I don’t think that they’ve found him quite yet, but they’ve also covered just about every hospital in the entire Yanbian Korean Autonomous Region. I mean, I’m a fan of Lee Jin-Yong as well, but he doesn’t bring the leadership skills to our club that I really want to see. For that, I look for the likes of Fan Xiang. Fan Xiang hails from a ethnic Korean family here in Yanji. At 24 years old, he is one of the few homegrown players on this club that has talent — and just so happens to be the natural club leader, too. It’s amazing what he’s been able to do with these players. No matter where they come from, no matter how little Chinese they understand, Fan Xiang has been able to earn their respect and get them in line. Together with Ye Jie, our other born leader, the two of them form an extremely strong leadership front, one that I think might last us for years. I do wish Fan Xiang were a more talented player, but we’ll take what we can get. It’s the leadership I care about more than the on-field talent anyway. I’ve heard rumors that Fan Xiang is related to the great Chinese defender Fan Zhiyi (formerly of Crystal Palace), though he assures me that the shared family name is only coincidental. I wouldn’t sell Fan Xiang to a Premier League side if they came asking anyway, even if they did make me a multi-million offer. As for Lee Jin-Yong… we’ll address that one another day. Qinghai We’re on the road again, this time to visit Qinghai Oulu. Qinghai play on the campus of Qinghai Normal University. You’re probably wondering where in the world that is. It happens to be on the western end of the country, a good 3,000 kilometer drive away, or about 31 hours if you hit all the green lights. Of course, we’re going to fly. Chairman Guo will see to that. As long as we stay on his good side, he’s more than happy to spend money to make us feel comfortable. Understandably, we’re only going to have around 200 away fans at the “stadium.” I’m not certain that it can be considered a stadium, of course, since the ground only has a 1,000 person capacity. If we don’t win this one, something is terribly wrong.

Shaanxi It turns out that I had nothing to worry about. We scored 7 minutes into this match and never looked back. We only gave up one shot the entire game, won 63% of the possession, and dominated the match despite not looking particularly good. 25-year-old striker Gao Yang, fresh off of injury, was clearly the player of the match. He passed well and got the ball into excellent areas, and finished the match off with a header for a goal in the 93rd minute. That makes 6 straight wins for us in the league, and we’re currently top of the table. We’ve scored 30 goals in 6 games, which is a pretty good clip. And we proved in this one that we didn’t need Mr. Kwon’s stabilizing presence after all. Of course, it might be a different story when we play a team that can actually compete with us. Torres We’ve got more good young players on this team than I can talk about at once. It’s probably easiest to split things up a little bit. Juan David Torres is a 22-year-old Colombian center back who was a fan favorite from the moment he arrived. He was one heck of a scouting find, too. I’m not sure how our scouts came across him, since he’s never had an international appearance at any level, and was hiding in obscurity somewhere on the Real Cartagena roster in the Colombian 2nd Division. The scouting report on Torres was so good that I bought him right away, throwing 4 million RMB at Real Cartagena. He’s been a hit so far, with a high average rating and numerous excellent performances for us so far this season. He’s also got a somewhat loud personality — a media-friendly individual who knows what he wants and pushes hard to get it. When he does finally learn Chinese, I think he’ll be an excellent player for us. Charlotte doesn’t care much for him, of course. She’s never cared for the tall centerbacks. She’s always been a bigger fan of the midfielders with long hair. The Big Test We host Beijing University next, in a #1 vs #2 matchup that is probably the most important game of the year. A win puts us way up in the standings, and almost guarantees that we will win the league outright, given how bad the competition is. If we lose, we’ll really have an uphill fight from here on out. I don’t foresee Beijing University losing to anybody else anytime soon.

Chinese FA Cup First Round We almost blew it. Cangzhou might not be the best team in the Chinese Super League, but it certainly looked like they were as good as us in this match. Mr. Kwon came on after about 30 minutes were gone by due to a minor injury to one of our other defensive midfielders. He was first on the scoresheet with a penalty in the 37th minute. And that was it for us. Cangzhou came back with a goal in the 85th minute, one that we really shouldn’t have let in. Off we went to extra time. Kim Kuk-Jin, our younger North Korean striker, gave us new hope with a goal in the 101st minute. But then disaster struck. Mr. Kwon fouled a Cangzhou player in the penalty area. He received a straight red card for his efforts, which I thought was absolutely ridiculous. The penalty was good, the score was tied, and we wound up going to penalties. We won in the end, 5-4. Hou Yu made a big save for us, and we salvaged the match. It was worrisome, though. Our statisticians will tell you that we were the better team on paper. We dominated possession, we had more shots, we had a higher xG, and so on. I don’t think I fully believe it, to be honest. We may have dominated the match in statistical terms, but we weren’t really all that close to scoring most of those opportunities. We’ve had a lot of wasted shots from outside the box — lots of low percentage play without the good teamwork that we need to move forward. I’m starting to believe that our success has been due to how poor the league is at the level we’re playing at. We might not be the best team in the country after all. However, in the end our massive home crowd went home happy. Another crowd of over 24,000, which bodes well for the future of the club. It could be worse. Red Card Fallout I didn’t need to see the replay. I knew right when it happened that I would appeal the red card. There was no question in my mind that no red card should have been given. It’s not just because I like Kwon Hyeok-Kyu. It’s because the play looked clean to me. I don’t need to see it from another angle, I don’t want to hear the referee’s explanation, and I certainly don’t want to hear what the media has to say about it. I know what I saw, and I’m going to do the right thing based on what I saw. The appeal fell flat, of course. We’ll be without Mr. Kwon for at least one game due to the suspension. There are some suspicious rumors going around Yanji that referee Hei Xiaohu might have been paid off. I don’t fully believe it, since we won the match in the end. Still, that was an extremely questionable call to make with less than 10 minutes to go in extra time. Of course, we wouldn’t even be thinking about it if our boys had played together like a team. That’s the real headache. Shaanxi Three days after that nerve wracking match, we’re back at it — this time hosting Shaanxi Guoli. We’re favorites to win again. Shaanxi are playing particularly poorly so far this season. We should be able to pile on the pressure — I hope.