Mao Weijie 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.
He is 20 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.
Marked 8.38. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Dalian Yingbo.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” He Chengdong, on a 3‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A Dalian Yingbo teenager takes the young player award
Wang Haobin is 20, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dalian Yingbo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Lyu Yuhao is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Huang Zihao
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Dalian Yingbo are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
In brief
SquadWords at Dalian Yingbo training over how hard people work
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Lyu Pin has, at Dalian Yingbo, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Mamadou Traoré 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.
14 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mao Weijie trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dalian Yingbo can pretend not to have heard.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Independiente is saying, and nobody at Dalian Yingbo is enjoying the guessing.
Isnik Alimi 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” He Chengdong after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Dalian Yingbo will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
Deadline passes with 19 signed and 17 gone
That is the business done at Dalian Yingbo until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Dalian Yingbo have done the hard part with Chengdu Rongcheng, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Deportes Tolima is saying, and nobody at Dalian Yingbo is enjoying the guessing.
Isnik Alimi 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Changchun Yatai have kept their man, and Dalian Yingbo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Shenzhen Peng City spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Dalian Yingbo will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Shanghai Shenhua have kept their man, and Dalian Yingbo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Dalian Yingbo, another week without a signature from Li Hao.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Dalian Yingbo will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
A loan enquiry to Deportes Tolima: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Li Hao has just signed for Dalian Yingbo, and for once the answer mattered.
The shirt still fits. Huang Zihao is back at Dalian Yingbo, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Kashiwa Reysol have kept their man, and Dalian Yingbo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Zhang Jiahui 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Zhang Yiming has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Wang Gang 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.
A 1‑0 win over Tianjin Jinmen Tiger, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nicolae Stanciu and Dalian Yingbo agree another 2 years.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Dalian Yingbo know it.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Isnik Alimi 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dalian Yingbo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Minute 85, against Changchun Yatai, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Still no offer on the table, and Isnik Alimi’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Kashiwa Reysol have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.