Shanghai Seaport is having a great season, in the first 21 rounds of CSL matches, they won 16, drew 4 and lost 1, accumulating 52 points. In the Super League table, they are leading by a huge margin of 14 points, and have almost secured their place on the podium of this season's Super League Championship.
Up front, the players new Shanghai coach Xavier relies on the most are Wu Lei, Issa Caron and others. Matias Vargas and Marcus Pinko have both been overlooked by Javier to varying degrees. However, the most embarrassing situation in Shanghai's forward line is not those two foreign strikers or Li Shenglong, who has been on the fringes for years, but a young player who has been pinned with national team hopes.
He is the 21-year-old striker Liu Zhuyun. Last season, Liu Zhu Run played 20 games for Shanghai Harbor. Although he only won 6 starting games, he contributed 3 goals and 1 assist to the team and was widely recognized by the outside world. Everyone thought that after the new season, he would gradually play a steady game for Shanghai Hong Kong, but little did they realize that last season would be even more embarrassing.
According to statistics, so far this season, after the first 21 rounds of the Chinese Super League, Liu Zhurun only one opportunity to go to Hong Kong to play, and it is still garbage time substitutes. It can be seen that the 21-year-old young talent of Hong Kong, in the tactical system of the head coach Javier, basically become the team's setup.
Liu Zhu Run is not only in good physical condition, but also, as a striker, he has speed, is good at dribbling, can pass and shoot, and has good creativity in front of the field. when he first entered Shanghai's first team in the 2020 season, his performance was highly recognized by the ace foreigner Oscar, who thought that his future was unlimited. In the previous seasons, Liu Zhu Run contributed a total of 8 goals and 1 assist for Shanghai despite his limited playing time, showing superb offensive attributes up front. It is worth noting that Liu Zhu Run's technical characteristics are similar to those of Wu Lei, and he has also been touted as Wu Lei's successor.
Due to Liu Zhurun's outstanding performance in Hong Kong, he was called up by the U22 national team, U23 national team and even the adult national team. He was highly anticipated by Chinese fans and was hailed as the future hopeful of Chinese men's soccer. Who would have thought that just two years later, the hopeful star of Chinese men's soccer would be left out in the cold in Shanghai, becoming a dispensable spectator. It's inevitably a sigh of relief to say the least. If he has been underappreciated at Shanghai SIPG, moving to another team could be a wiser choice for him.
