Marked for Lu Xiaobin
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad27 Jun 2033
33 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Qingdao Hainiu lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match27 Jun 2033
Every point is an argument now for Qingdao Hainiu
Position 15 and 12 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Match25 Jun 2033
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Qingdao Hainiu are no longer polite ones.
Market27 Jun 2033
Lu Xiaobin hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Qingdao Hainiu can pretend not to have heard.
Squad27 Jun 2033
Liao Rongxiang 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.
Squad27 Jun 2033
“The easiest signature of my career.” Liu Shibo and Qingdao Hainiu agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Match25 Jun 2033
4 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Match25 Jun 2033
0‑2 to Shenzhen Peng City, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout27 Jun 2033
No hiding place for Zhang Wei
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Zhang Wei, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad30 May 2033
Matheus Peixoto damages knee ligaments — 61 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 61 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market30 May 2033
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Qingdao Hainiu, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad30 May 2033
Dai Wai Tsun 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.
Player ratings30 May 2033
A performance of 8.00 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad30 May 2033
100 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
Player ratings30 May 2033
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match28 May 2033
A 1‑1 draw with Zhejiang FC leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout30 May 2033
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Interim Coach after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The dugout30 May 2033
The form table has caught Zhao Rui
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad2 May 2033
89 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Qingdao Hainiu lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market2 May 2033
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad2 May 2033
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Liu Junxian commits to Qingdao Hainiu for another 2 years.
Squad2 May 2033
Dai Wai Tsun 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.
Match30 Apr 2033
0‑1 to Dalian Yingbo, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout2 May 2033
No hiding place for Liu Shibo
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Liu Shibo, and the manager let it.
Squad2 May 2033
Tin Pasalic lets one through his hands
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
The dugout2 May 2033
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
Market2 May 2033
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Qingdao Hainiu, another week without a signature from Peng Yixiang.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad4 Apr 2033
Matheus Peixoto damages knee ligaments — 117 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 117 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Boardroom4 Apr 2033
The club looked outside for a month, found nothing it preferred, and handed the job to the man who had been doing it anyway. He knows the building; now he has to prove he knows the rest.
Player ratings4 Apr 2033
Germano pops up at the right end — 7.77
7.77, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Market4 Apr 2033
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Qingdao Hainiu, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad4 Apr 2033
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Qingdao Hainiu are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad4 Apr 2033
Dai Wai Tsun 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.
Boardroom4 Apr 2033
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Match2 Apr 2033
A 2‑1 win over Meizhou Hakka, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The terraces4 Apr 2033
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
In brief
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Squad
Liang Jinhong slips down the pecking order
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
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Player ratings
Wang Yudong runs at them all day
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Mar 2033
A knee injury of the worst kind for Matheus Peixoto
124 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Qingdao Hainiu lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The dugout28 Mar 2033
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad28 Mar 2033
Dai Wai Tsun 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.
Looking ahead28 Mar 2033
Meizhou Hakka next, and one man in the Qingdao Hainiu dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Market28 Mar 2033
The clock does Yu Tianle’s negotiating for him
5 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Qingdao Hainiu could ask drops and the wages Yu Tianle can ask rise.
Market28 Mar 2033
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Lu Xiaobin may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Boardroom28 Mar 2033
The Qingdao Hainiu production line keeps running
60 graduates out of an academy now rated 4 out of 20. Clubs this size survive on exactly that, and the town knows every name.
Looking ahead28 Mar 2033
They sit in position 11 and they will be waiting. Away form is where a season shows its true character, and this side has a point to make about its own.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom7 Mar 2033
Qingdao Hainiu part company with the manager
The statement thanked him for his efforts and wished him well, in that order and in about that many words. The search begins immediately.
Squad7 Mar 2033
A knee injury of the worst kind for Matheus Peixoto
145 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Qingdao Hainiu lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match5 Mar 2033
Beaten 1‑5 by Shenzhen Peng City, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Market7 Mar 2033
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom7 Mar 2033
There is nobody left to promote and nobody left to run a session. The board have brought in a name the supporters do not know, and the question of how a club gets here will outlast whoever answers it.
Boardroom7 Mar 2033
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
Transfer targets7 Mar 2033
Failed medical for Ma Zhen
The deal with Tianjin Jinmen Tiger died in the treatment room. Nobody will say what was found and everybody in the game will find out by Friday.
Market7 Mar 2033
Wang Zhifeng has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Qingdao Hainiu they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market7 Mar 2033
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.