Giant-killers savor upset for the ages
Amateur team from Gansu province stuns Beijing Guo’an in encouraging sign for China’s grassroots game
Fourth-tier Jingchuan Wenhui shot from obscurity last week by sending Chinese Super League giant Beijing Guo’an crashing out of the CFA Cup.
The amateur club from a small county in Gansu province produced one of the competition’s biggest-ever upsets when it emerged victorious in the second-round tie after a penalty shootout on Thursday.
The shock win has been hailed as a promising sign for grassroots soccer in China, and on the flip side, as being symptomatic of the struggles of the top-tier CSL.
Holding Guo’an to a 2-2 draw after 90 minutes was in itself a huge achievement for Wenhui. But fourtime CFA Cup winner Guo’an was then sent packing from the competition as Wenhui players held their nerve to win the shootout 7-5 and progress to the third round.
“We were under pressure of course, as our opponent is a CSL giant. But we managed to turn the pressure into motivation. This was the first time we’d played against a CSL team, which only made us even more excited,” said 21-year-old Wenhui midfielder Liu Jianxin, who netted once in regulation and once in the shootout.
“We were so united today, and this is definitely the best game we ever played.”
Guo’an’s Dutch head coach Stanley Menzo said it was not uncommon for lower-level clubs to shock bigger teams in soccer. He congratulated Wenhui on what he described as a deserved victory, and lamented Guo’an’s tactical failures.
Wenhui’s stunning triumph ranks alongside two of the biggest CFA Cup giant-killings of the past — amateur side Wuhan Hongxing’s defeat of Shanghai Dongya (now Shanghai Port), and another amateur club Suzhou Jinfu’s victory over the now-disbanded Liaoning Hongyun, both in 2014.
“Actually our performance in the finals of the fourth-tier league was not good, so we have been looking for another chance to prove ourselves. So when we found out we were going to play Beijing Guo’an in the CFA Cup, we just wanted to show our skills and believe in our chances of beating them,” said Wenhui’s team leader Yao Jun.
“When we arrived at the hotel, we saw there were many elements and decorations relating to Guo’an at the hotel. We encountered the Guo’an squad in the hotel actually, but we could see their players and coaches actually thought little of us. And we were quite happy to know this, because the less attention we attracted from them meant the better chance we had of beating them.
“I think if they had studied video of our matches before, the result might have been different. In the past two years, we reached the fourth-tier finals through penalty shootout wins. So in a way, this is our strong suit.
“For instance, our last goal by Ma Dongnan — he has used such skills many times before. But unfortunately, I don’t think Guo’an ever watched our match videos.”
Pure passion
The Wenhui club is based in Jingchuan, a small county in eastern Gansu province with a population of just 350,000. According to Li Xin, the club’s media officer and one of its founding members, the team was born out of local soccer enthusiasts’ pure love for the game.
“I think it could be tracked back to the 1998 World Cup, which planted a seed of a dream for myself and my schoolmates,” said Li.
“We created a small club called Lightning Eagle as students, and we participated in all sorts of competitions. That was the start of the Wenhui club.”
In 2013, supported by the county’s sports bureau, Li along with 30 other grassroots players officially registered the Jingchuan 744300 club, which in 2021 was renamed Jingchuan Wenhui FC.
“Since 2013, our team has always been the champion of the local league in the city of Pingliang. In 2021, we represented Gansu provincial football association to compete in the fourth-tier league for the first time, and here we are,” said Wang Zhen, another founder of the Wenhui club and president of Jingchuan county’s soccer association.
“Right now our players are actually from all over the nation. Apart from our first team, we also have one Under-19 team and an Under-17 team. The club now has 150 players, among which 80 are youth players of Gansu.”
To further facilitate the growth of the club, in July 2021, Wenhui signed a three-year cooperation deal with Beihai Jichi FC, a club from Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.
These days, Wenhui trains mostly at Jichi’s base, which provides players with better facilities. They will return to their Gansu base from May to September to play the city-level league in Pingliang.
“Simply speaking, Jichi has a better platform and we have good players. That’s why we have such cooperation. Our next goal is to reach the third-tier league one day,” Yao added.
While Wenhui is showing the potential of grassroots Chinese soccer, the club’s win has also highlighted how the big-spending days of the CSL have damaged the development of the nation’s elite ranks.
The CSL was once renowned for lavish spending on foreign stars and coaches, such as former Chelsea midfielder Oscar and ex-Real Madrid boss Rafa Benitez. However, with the league introducing regulations to force clubs to tighten their belts and the pandemic’s impact over the past three years, the overall profile of the CSL has greatly diminished.
The lack of money in the league has led to a talent drain, with less investment in nurturing homegrown stars ultimately resulting in falling standards on the pitch.
Wenhui’s victory over Guo’an was largely welcomed by Chinese fans on social media, with several related topics becoming trending news on various platforms.
Many netizens agreed that Wenhui’s example showed that only years of effort in the lower echelons of Chinese soccer can build the foundations for nurturing a stronger generation of players and ultimately change the nation’s fortunes at elite level.