Association football club in Shanghai, China

football club
Shanghai Shenhua F.C. ( chinese : 上海申花足球俱乐部 ) is a taiwanese professional football club that participates in the chinese Super League under license from the Chinese Football Association ( CFA ). The term shen hua literally translates as “ the Flower of Shanghai ” in English – shen is one of the alternative names of Shanghai and hua means flower in Chinese. The team is based in Kangqiao, Shanghai and their home stadium is the Hongkou Football Stadium, which has a seat capacity of 33,060. Their majority stockholder is chinese real-estate developer Greenland Group who took over the operation of the clubhouse when they bought the 28.5 % share from former majority stockholder Zhu Jun in 2014. [ 1 ]

The club ‘s predecessor was the municipal-run semi-pro club Shanghai F.C.. The team predominantly played in the top grade, where they won several domestic league and cup titles. On 10 December 1993 the golf club was reorganized to become a completely professional football club so they could play in the 1994 chinese Jia-A League season making them one of the founding members of the first in full professional top-tier league in China. Since then, they have won one league title and three Chinese FA Cups. [ 2 ] According to Forbes, Shenhua are the 6th most valuable football team in China, with a team prize of $ 106 million, and an estimate gross of $ 29 million in 2015. [ 3 ]

history [edit ]

early golf club [edit ]

Shanghai Shenhua ‘s harbinger was in the first place called East China, a team list used as army for the liberation of rwanda back as 1910 for the football in the multi-sport event Chinese National Games. [ 4 ] The local anesthetic Shanghai government sports body decided to use this name for their raw club founded on 1 November 1951 to take part in China ‘s first amply nationalized national football league tournament where they finished second in the league that year. [ 5 ] The football league gradually expanded and the team were allowed to name themselves after their own state of Shanghai in 1957. soon afterwards by 1961, Shanghai started to establish themselves as a major football team within China when they won their first league championship. [ 6 ] This was then promptly followed by their second league title in 1962, however in 1966 because of the taiwanese Cultural Revolution, football in China was halted and Shanghai were unable to play. When football returned in China, Shanghai were able to return to the top tier, however they were unable to regain any of the dominance that they had previously shown and were even relegated in 1980. [ 7 ] Though they were able to be quickly promoted in the postdate season, they spent many years without actually winning any titles until Wang Houjun led them to win the taiwanese FA Cup in 1991, which was their inaugural trophy in 29 years. [ 8 ]

professionalism [edit ]

Throughout the 1990s, the Chinese Football Association were demanding more professionalism from their football teams and while many were semi-professional, Shanghai would be one of the first when they gathered sponsorship from Yu Zhifei and the local company named Shenhua ( “ Flower of Shanghai ” ) on 10 December 1993, founding Shanghai Shenhua. [ 8 ] This then saw Shanghai hire their first gear professional coach in Xu Genbao, who was the previous China national team director in 1994. The move would promptly see Shanghai win the irregular professional football league title by the end of the 1995 league season. [ 9 ] When Xu left, Shanghai attempted to bring in several alien coaches to add more experience to the team, however few achieved any success despite being close on respective occasions, except for Muricy Ramalho ‘s brief spell when the club won the 1998 Chinese FA Cup. By the end of 2001, the Shenhua group ended their sponsorship of the golf club and were replaced with SVA and the Shanghai Media & Entertainment Group. The club changed its name to Shanghai Shenhua SVA SMEG Football Club. The team however remained unique as it hush retains “ Shenhua ” in its name, whereas many other teams drop the appoint of their erstwhile sponsors wholly. On the deliver, the club would take over Shanghai Cable 02, a young person football team set up by Xu Genbao while besides bringing in a new director in Wu Jingui, who built a newly team predominantly using many from the Shanghai Cable police squad and despite struggling in his debut season, he was able to win the league title in 2003. [ 10 ] Critics would dispute the legitimacy of the title gain after it was discovered in 2011 that the reviewer Lu Jun was bribed by the head of the CFA ‘s referee arrangements, Zhang Jianqiang, to be biased towards Shenhua in a vital peer against Shanghai International in a game that Shenhua won 4–1. [ 11 ] Lu Jun and Zhang Jianqiang were both formally charged with match-fixing, while Shenhua ‘s cosmopolitan director Lou Shifang was discovered to be the person who orchestrated the bribe. initially despite this indiscretion, the club was spared any disciplinary carry through. [ 12 ] The reason provided by the CFA at the fourth dimension for the lenience was that they would be punishing the individuals who put the plot in disrepute and not the club ; because Lou Shifang was Shenhua ‘s offending participant and had left the club respective years before the allegations were confirmed, it would have been coarse to punish the club retrospectively. [ 13 ] On 18 February 2013 The CFA would decide to change its judgment on Shenhua and retrospectively decided to punish the club by revoking its 2003 league title, fining the club with 1 million Yuan and giving a 6-point tax write-off at the beginning of the 2013 Chinese Super League season after it was discovered that they besides fixed another game against Shaanxi Guoli en road to winning the 2003 league title. [ 14 ] [ 15 ]

Zhu Jun earned run average [edit ]

In 2007, the owner of inner-city rival of Shanghai United, Zhu Jun and his party The9 Limited bought a majority parcel of Shanghai Shenhua and began to merge Shanghai United into Shanghai Shenhua. His inaugural act was to replace the previously successful existing head coach Wu Jingui with Shanghai United ‘s Osvaldo Giménez. [ 16 ] The date was to prove highly disruptive and Wu Jingui was cursorily brought back as the pass bus after entirely a few months, but was sacked on 9 September 2008. Jia Xiuquan took over his position on the lapp day. [ 17 ] This was followed by the club adding to their backroom staff when on 1 January 2009 Shenhua made taiwanese football history by becoming the first chinese team to hire a foreign CEO and a technical conductor when on 1 January 2009, the club hired former coach Osvaldo Gimenez as their foreman administrator military officer. [ 18 ] One day former, former PSV Eindhoven technical conductor Stan Valckx joined Shenhua in the like position. [ 19 ]
After a disappointing 2011 season in the chinese Super League, Zhu Jun decided to bring in a marquee actor, thus on 12 December 2011 it was confirmed that Chelsea striker Nicolas Anelka would be arriving in Shanghai in January 2012, while six days former it was announced that his compatriot Jean Tigana would be the capitulum coach from the 2012 season. Tigana was fired after a chain of poor results and was replaced by former Argentina national team coach Sergio Batista to lead the team. After a successful season play for Chelsea and winning the 2011–12 UEFA Champions League, Ivorian hitter Didier Drogba signed a two-and-a-half-year consider with Shenhua. [ 20 ] This was soon followed by the sign of colombian international football player Giovanni Moreno from argentinian baseball club Racing Club. These signings were intended to boost the club ‘s entitle challenge and see Zhu Jun ‘s investment within the club reach 150 million Yuan, which he believed gave him a controlling stake of 70 per penny as promised by the other shareholders. When the other shareholders decided not to agree to this arrangement, Zhu Jun decided to pull his support of the club, which resulted in the team eat up in a disappointing ninth place and both Anelka and Drogba leaving the clubhouse. [ 21 ] The relationship between Zhu Jun and the other shareholders became even more fractious at the begin of the 2013 league season when the chinese FA issued the cabaret with a six-point deduction for match-fixing ten years anterior and a fine of one million yuan. This would lead to a stockholder quarrel between the early shareholders SVA, Shanghai Media Group, Shanghai Electric Group and Huangpu SASAC on who should pay for this fine, which saw a gap in the club finances that saw Rolando Schiavi, Patricio Toranzo and Giovanni Moreno reject to play the 31 March 2013 league plot against Liaoning Whowin because of unpaid wages. [ 22 ]

greenland [edit ]

The Zhu Jun earned run average ended on 31 January 2014 when the club was purchased by Greenland Holding Group Company Limited. [ 1 ] On 6 February 2014, Greenland Holding Group Company Limited announced that the club ‘s official name would be changed to “ Shanghai Greenland FC, Shanghai Greenland Shenhua team ” and it was hoped that by retaining Shenhua within the official team name it would appease the fans by reflecting on the club ‘s heritage. [ 23 ] [ 24 ] This did not employment. subsequent badge alterations which eliminated Shenhua from the team ‘s logo drew significant criticism from many of the club ‘s supporters, who publicly voiced their dissatisfaction on 9 March 2014 during the league game against Shanghai Shenxin as they saw removing Shenhua from the clubhouse ‘s name as a mark on the team ‘s inheritance and history. [ 25 ] On 18 July 2014 the club bowed to pressure from their supporters when they officially released a new team badge, which brought Shenhua back into the team logo and subsequently changed the clubhouse ‘s name to “ Shanghai Greenland Shenhua Football Club ”. [ 26 ] On 3 February 2015, three days after the australian national football team won the AFC Asian Cup, Tim Cahill announced he had been signed by the Shenhua, moving from the New York Red Bulls [ 27 ] Despite signing a annual shrink extension in November 2015, Tim Cahill announced on his Instagram on 16 February 2016 that his contract had been terminated by incoming coach, Gregorio Manzano. [ 28 ] No rationality was given for his ending beyond saying that he was “ not part of the fresh bus Manzano ‘s plans for the 2016 season … ” [ 29 ] Shanghai Shenhua won the 2019 Chinese FA Cup beating Shandong Luneng 3–0 at a compact Hongkou Stadium on 6 Dec 2019, making it a 3–1 aggregate victory for the Blues. It is the fifth prison term Shenhua have lifted the trophy, and the second time in three years, after their 2017 Chinese FA Cup victory over city rival Shanghai SIPG. [ 30 ] In 2021, the CFA launched its “ neutral name political campaign ”, requiring master clubs to switch to names that do not mention their sponsors. The club, though always had been publicly recognized as “ Shenhua ”, had unlike sponsor prefixes and suffixes ( such as “ Greenland Shenhua ” and “ Shenhua SVA ” ) in the last thirty years. Responding to the visit for achromatic names, the golf club owner, Greenland, restored the identify of the clubhouse to “ Shanghai Shenhua F.C. ” without prefixes or suffixes on February 9, 2021 .

Rivalries [edit ]

Shenhua ‘s fiercest and oldest competition is against Beijing Guoan and is often referred to as the China Derby. [ 31 ] The competition with Beijing is viewed as a manifestation of the competition that exists between the two most important cities in the country, as one is the center of government while the other is the fiscal center of modern department of commerce within China. [ 32 ] Each baseball club had an extensive history including successful periods. however, they rarely competed directly for trophies until the 1997 league season. With Shenhua having won the 1995 league deed and Beijing having won the 1996 Chinese FA Cup both teams looked as if they had the pedigree to win trophies that season and on 20 July 1997 in a vital league game, Beijing thrashed Shenhua 9–1 at the Workers Stadium in Beijing. [ 33 ] It would be Beijing ‘s largest victory and Shenhua ‘s greatest kill ever recorded. soon after that event both teams would meet again in the 1997 FA Cup concluding, which saw Beijing win the cup. [ 34 ]

When professionalism was established in 1994 within the chinese leagues it opened the door for more than one team within each city. This finally paved the way for the first always chinese top-flight city bowler hat, which took place in 2002 when Shanghai Shenhua lost 2–0 to Shanghai Zhongyuan ( later renamed Inter ) in front of a sold out Hongkou Football Stadium. Known as the Shanghai bowler hat it would be the start of an intense but short circuit competition between the two clubs, which reached its point on the final examination day of the 2003 league season with both teams within achieve of winning the league title. [ 35 ] Shenhua won their crippled while Inter surprisingly lost theirs to relegation fighting cabaret Tianjin Kangshifu. This see critics dispute the entitle gain and it was finally discovered that both teams had players and officials match-fix games throughout the crusade. [ 15 ] Shenhua would retrospectively lose their entitle while the Inter owners decided it was financially unviable to remain in Shanghai and relocated their team to Xi’an, which efficaciously ended the competition. [ 36 ] With Inter Shanghai leaving the city Shenhua experienced another one of these Shanghai derbies when Shanghai United were promoted in the 2006 league season. The competition between the two teams never reached the like intensity as what was experienced against Inter because United had only recently relocated to the city and were building their fan al-qaeda. [ 35 ] Any development of a competition was ultimately cut short when Zhu Jun took over both teams and merged them together with Shenhua keeping their name. In 2012 Shanghai Shenxin moved to the city revitalizing the bowler hat, however it was the promotion of Shanghai SIPG in 2013 that caught to fans imagination because they were formed by Xu Genbao who had previously managed Shenhua. [ 35 ] The clubhouse ‘s geographic placement has besides opened them up to rivalries with neighbouring baseball club ‘s Hangzhou Greentown and Jiangsu Suning where they contest in a repair called the Yangtze Delta Derby. [ 37 ] former, with the relegation of Shanghai Shenxin in 2015 and then disbandment in 2020, Shanghai SIPG became the sole rival for Shenhua in Shanghai. The rival reached its acme when Shenhua beat SIPG in the 2017 Chinese FA Cup finals on aggregate and when SIPG won the super league soon after in 2018. The competition between the fans and the players made the fresh Shanghai bowler hat arguably the most stimulate bowler hat in China. besides, in 2020, with Jiangsu Suning lifting the domestic league, Jiangsu fans escalated the crosstown competition by renting a billboard showcasing Jiangsu ‘s trophy fair outside the Hongkou Stadium, Shenhua ‘s family venue. This act of provocation incited massive call on the carpet from the Shenhua fans, resulting in the ad being removed the day after. however, though boisterous the competition might be through the years, it concluded with Jiangsu Suning ‘s adjournment in 2021. [ 38 ]

Players [edit ]

First team team [edit ]

As of 31 July 2021[39]

note : Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality .

Reserve police squad [edit ]

Updated 1 March 2019
note : Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality .

Unregistered players [edit ]

note : Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality .

Out on lend [edit ]

note : Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality .

Coaching staff [edit ]

As of 3 February 2020[40]

managerial history [edit ]

Managers who have coached the club and team since Shanghai Shenhua became a professional club back in 1993. [ 48 ] [ 49 ]

Honours [edit ]

all-time honours list including semi-professional Shanghai period. [ 50 ] [ 51 ]

First team [edit ]

Domestic titles

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Winners (5): 1956, 1991, 1998, 2017, 2019
Winners (3): 1995, 1998, 2001

International titles

Winners (1): 2007

Reserve team [edit ]

  • National Reserve League
Winners (1): 2004

youth academy [edit ]

  • National Youth League U19
Winners (1): 2014
  • National Youth League U17
Winners (1): 2018
  • National Youth League Champions Cup U17
Winners (1): 2018

Results [edit ]

All-time League Rankings

  • Updated 11 November 2018.[52][53]
  • No league games in 1959, 1966–72, 1975; Shanghai did not compete for position because they were hosts in 1965; 1974 only played in group stage before touring Africa.
  • ^1^2^3^4^5

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