It finished 2-5. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
Maidana was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Beijing Guoan and Qingdao Hainiu in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
The offer went to Shandong Taishan this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad29 Jan 2029
Words at Beijing Guoan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Uroš Spajić is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Beijing Guoan asked and Changchun Yatai said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The new man at Beijing Guoan has worked with Valentín Catalán before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
Nobody at Beijing Guoan will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beijing Guoan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Dec 2028
Wei Shihao falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Gustavo is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dawhan signs something — a contract at Beijing Guoan or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Beijing Guoan, and both men came out saying it was fine.
57 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Beijing Guoan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Wei Shihao was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Uroš Spajić falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Nobody at Beijing Guoan will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Gustavo signs something — a contract at Beijing Guoan or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Shandong Taishan arrived with $5.6M and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
0‑4 against Shanghai Port, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Jiang Shenglong has gone, the accounts have $5.6M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Shenzhen Peng City moved on, Zhang Xizhe reports back to Beijing Guoan, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beijing Guoan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Beijing Guoan offered $320.0K; Tianjin Jinmen Tiger said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Beijing Guoan asked and Changchun Yatai said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
In brief
SquadUroš Spajić falls out with a teammate over standards
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Beijing Guoan can pretend not to have heard.
Jiang Shenglong and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Marked 7.45 on 13 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Uroš Spajić falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
A 2‑0 win over Wuhan Three Towns, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Gustavo in the middle of it, and Wuhan Three Towns unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Beijing Guoan will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Feng Boxuan will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Beijing Guoan the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Feng Boxuan has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Zhang Yuning and Beijing Guoan agree another 3 years.
Maidana was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Boardroom6 Mar 2028
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Beijing Guoan
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Peng Binbin has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Gao Chengyu has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Dong Chengrui has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.