On March 22, Oriental Sports Daily wrote an article about Harbor, which said that new striker Gustavo will make his debut and Vargas may take on more offensive responsibilities.
Seaport brought in Brazilian center forward Gustavo, who used to play for Jeonbuk Hyundai, in the winter window. This winger has excellent center back and tackling skills. In addition, his header ability is extremely strong, which meets Seaport's need for a center forward. Unfortunately, soon after joining the team, Gustavo got injured.
After a break for the Super Cup and the first round of the league, Gustavo's condition improved significantly. He put in a recovery session a week before the match against Zhejiang, but the team opted to recover further during the break rather than risk bringing him to Hangzhou.
Gustavo said in an interview on the open practice day that he will be preparing for the league season that resumes at the end of the month. It can be expected that with Gustavo's comeback, the port will have different personnel reshuffles on the offensive end. With the return of international players, there is a possibility of personnel reorganization in all positions except for Wu Lei, who has a high probability of occupying a position in the attacking line, which needs to be further observed in training and against different opponents.
Among other players, Li Ang withdrew from the national team's training due to injury. He is stuck with a thigh semimembranosus muscle strain. Whether he can make it to the league match at the end of the month needs to be a question mark. Similar to Li Shuai is Xu Xin, who did not show up at the open training day on Wednesday. As for captain Oscar, he is still recovering from training alone and should be in a better condition than the first two.
For the other foreigner, Vargas, he has had a bit of a high and low season statistically since joining in the middle of the 2022 season, and didn't start his personal goalscoring account until September last season, before which he even nearly left the team due to his unhappiness with Javier.
Vargas still hasn't played a full game since the start of the new season, but Seaport and Muscat undoubtedly have high hopes for him, judging by the fact that the team agreed to let Vargas take over the No. 10 jersey at the beginning of the season, and then scheduled consecutive starts for him in official matches.
"As a coach, when choosing a lineup or a player, I don't really think about where he's coming from, whether he's a foreigner or a local player. Everything is based on the whole team." Muscat also answered the question about the use of foreigners by Chinese Super League teams with his own criteria for hiring.
In fact, as the season progresses, Vargas has more opportunities to help the team and even Harbour especially needs the help he provides in crucial moments. Vargas has often been seen up front or on the wing lately. In the absence of Oscar, Vargas is likely to be another key piece in the team's attacking front end.
