Lu Long

Striker - Shandong Taishan
15 Nov 2032
Monday
Process
Overview Personal Contract News 3 Transfers Relations Events 57 Awards Matches History

Marked for Lu Long

319 Edition

The Shandong Taishan Courier

6 Sep 2032
From our football correspondent Upbeat

Market6 Sep 2032

Abdul Aziz Yakubu is on his way

The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Shandong Taishan is pretending he will be back in the shirt.

Market6 Sep 2032

Xie Long asks to leave Shandong Taishan

“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.

Squad6 Sep 2032

Albion Ademi in a row with a teammate

It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shandong Taishan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Squad6 Sep 2032

Shin'ichi Chan signs a new deal

“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Shin'ichi Chan commits to Shandong Taishan for another 3 years.

Squad6 Sep 2032

Bao Jiaqi is the month’s best young player

At 20 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Shandong Taishan will try not to make too much of it.

Squad6 Sep 2032

Abdul Aziz Yakubu slips down the pecking order

The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Abdul Aziz Yakubu is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.

The dugout6 Sep 2032

Haruna Hassan has become a man the manager trusts

Nobody at Shandong Taishan 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.

Market6 Sep 2032

Albion Ademi linked with a move away

The name of Albion Ademi keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Shandong Taishan say nothing, which says plenty.

The dugout6 Sep 2032

Lu Long gets it from the manager

“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.

In brief

Back issues
312 Edition

The Shandong Taishan Courier

19 Jul 2032
From our football correspondent Crisis

Squad19 Jul 2032

Words at Shandong Taishan training over how hard people work

Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Albion Ademi 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.

Squad19 Jul 2032

Guilherme Borges wants to go home

“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Shandong Taishan can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.

Match17 Jul 2032

The goals have deserted Shandong Taishan

3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Shandong Taishan can tell you which week it ends in.

Match17 Jul 2032

A bad afternoon for Shandong Taishan against Changchun Yatai

0‑1 to Changchun Yatai, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.

Player ratings19 Jul 2032

The game went through Albion Ademi — 7.14

Marked 7.14 on 10 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.

The dugout19 Jul 2032

The view from the dugout

“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Xie Chengdong to a room that had heard them before.

The dugout19 Jul 2032

Xie Wenneng gets picked when it counts

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 Xie Wenneng is on it.

Player ratings19 Jul 2032

Bao Jiaqi runs at them all day

Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.

The dugout19 Jul 2032

The manager makes an example of Lu Long

“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.

In brief

297 Edition

The Shandong Taishan Courier

5 Apr 2032
From our football correspondent Upbeat

Match31 Mar 2032

Shandong Taishan through in the cup

A 3‑2 win over Qingdao Hainiu, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.

Player ratings5 Apr 2032

Lu Long, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 9.35

A mark of 9.35 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.

Market5 Apr 2032

Haruna Hassan has one foot out of the door

Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Shandong Taishan they have already started talking about him in the past tense.

Squad5 Apr 2032

A day Lu Long will not forget

3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.

Squad5 Apr 2032

Guilherme Madruga 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.

The terraces5 Apr 2032

The crowd has taken to Lu Long

At 18 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.

Squad5 Apr 2032

Albion Ademi slips down the pecking order

The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Albion Ademi is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.

Player ratings5 Apr 2032

Bao Jiaqi was unplayable

Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.

Player ratings5 Apr 2032

Shin'ichi Chan was the difference for Shandong Taishan

Marked 7.40. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.

In brief