Exactly 20 years later, another group of Shaanxi fans once again fell to their knees next to the team's training ground, praying the same prayer to save the home team, but the result remained unchanged.
Natural disaster, man-made disaster
It's been an eventful spring in Chinese soccer, and Shaanxi Chang'an Athletic's origins seem unremarkable. But compared to Chinese Super League teams like Guangzhou City, Kunshan and Hebei, it is the death of this sub-league club that has touched the hearts of more fans.
It may be hard for fans in most parts of the country to understand how Xi'an, a city without a top league team for 12 years, can be among the nation's key soccer development cities.
In the history of sports in New China, Shaanxi has never been a strong sports province, and soccer doesn't have as large a base of mass participation as traditional powerhouses such as Liaoning. However, in this long barren land of professional soccer, the local people's passion for soccer has won the nation.
It can be said that Shaanxi fans' love for their team is as simple and sincere as their love for their city - even if it's an outsider, as long as it's called Shaanxi, fans can willingly yell for them.
In 1995, Bayi put their home stadium in Xi'an. Although they went south to Kunming after only one year, Shaanxi fans who experienced the professional league for the first time engraved their love of soccer into the city's DNA.
At the beginning of 1996, Xi'an native Li Zhimin introduced the Bayi team to Shaanxi and established the Shaanxi Guoli Football Club. After only four seasons, this team managed to finish first in the AB, and Shaanxi fans finally had their first national top league team in the Northwest.
The next few seasons saw an average of 50,000 people per game and box office revenues of over $1 million, creating Xi'an's famous ultra-platinum ball market, with generations of fans going crazy for soccer.
Guoli was the first top league in Shaanxi, so almost everyone was an avid fan. I was still in kindergarten at the time. Every match day, my parents took me to watch the game live, and then the next day everyone on the street was talking about the previous day's game and the score. Li Hongyu was brought to the game by his family from a young age and grew up in this atmosphere, becoming a typical fan in Shaanxi.
At the time, because of match-fixing and a few other things, the fans could actually accept Guoli's move in their hearts, and soon came to Xi'an to fill the void of Shaanxi fans to a certain extent. In 2006, Li Hongyu said that Shanghai COSCO, which was then acquired by Yongda Group, moved the team to Xi'an and renamed it Shaanxi?
Despite not really being a homegrown team, Shaanxi fans quickly came to think of the Raccoons as their own as far back as Li Hongyu can remember.
After entering Xi'an, the team broke the Chinese Super League record with 34 points in the first half of the 2008 season, winning the halfway championship of the Chinese Super League, and bringing in strong reinforcements such as Sun Jihai, Zhao Xueri, Qu Bo, and Mao Jianqing in the following years. Excellent results and a strong lineup brought Shaanxi fans back to their former frenzy.
But what no one expected was the sudden announcement that the team was moving to Guizhou after the 2011 season. This decision surprised countless Shaanxi fans.
Shaanxi fans are far more touched than Guoli. At first Guoli left the fans were still prepared and knew it was a desperate move by the team to run out of money. Even in the last home game, he was saying 'see you next year' to the fans and then turned around and left. This abandonment and blow is unacceptable.
Leaving at once even changed the course of many Shaanxi fans' lives to a certain extent, planting a seed in their hearts to do sports and Chinese soccer - if we can develop Shaanxi's sports together, will we never lose the team again?
Shaanxi fans are simple and plain-minded.
The Death of Shaanxi Governor An Athletic
Hopefully, the next Shaanxi team will draw on the strengths we have and bypass the detours we took to build on the Shaanxi fans. In the farewell letter released by Shaanxi Chang'an Athletic on the evening of March 29, these words became the club's last memories left to Shaanxi soccer.
In fact, looking back on this seven-year journey, fan-oriented Shaanxi Chang'an Athletics has always adhered to this philosophy.
Shaanxi Chang'an Athletic Football Club 2016-2022 first, and last, family photo.
In March 2016, in the form of a natural person, Shaanxi Jiema Sports Co. Ltd. was formally registered in the industrial and commercial sector in conjunction with seven companies from different industries. Ltd. and Chang'an Athletic Football Club. Chang'an Athletic, as a native Shaanxi team, has been the heart of Shaanxi fans since its inception.
Since its inception, many of the old Shaanxi fans have been following the team's every move. At first, China and B were not broadcast, so we would do everything we could to learn about the games and accompany the team on their road trips. Many of the away games in Baoding, Shenyang, Meizhou, and Nantong had a large number of Shaanxi fans. Yu Tianyu told us.
When the club approached the fans, the fans also showed with their actions that the level and the level of the team doesn't matter, whether it's in the Premier League, the First Division or the Second Division. What matters is this team. Shaanxi team - as long as you represent Shaanxi, you are the soldiers of the fans.
And the rising threshold of investment in Chinese soccer brought about by years of gold-dollar soccer continues to make Shaanxi Chang'an Athletic's development a struggle.
As Shaanxi fans, we did a background check on the team before the epidemic. Shaanxi Chang'an Athletic was doing very well for a Chinese League One team, but it's hard to call it a healthy operation in the overall environment of Chinese soccer at the time. Some investors told us that there were many brands and companies interested in Shaanxi Chang'an Athletic, but were ultimately scared off by the investment climate in Chinese soccer.
In his article, Orange Cat, who once investigated Chang'an Athletic in depth, also confessed that Chang'an Athletic's commercial operation ability can be considered the top in China, and its sponsorship income can even be ranked in the forefront of the Chinese Super League. However, it is undeniable that the existing debt is high and the amount of continuous investment needed every year in the future is too high.
However, in the process, Shaanxi Chang'an Athletic set their goals for the new season, having already completed targeted signings and additions, including head coach Wang Baoshan, which made it unaffordable for the club to lose the support of the Water Group.
And according to sources, the direct cause of Shaanxi Chang'an Athletic's failure to complete access was ultimately the issue of outstanding wages for this group of new recruits.
Wang Baoshan is also the first international player in Shaanxi history.
Whether it is the epidemic or the cooperation with the water group, in fact, behind these highlights, or the current Chinese soccer market and clubs in the operation of the failure.
Some local Shaanxi fans told us about Da Qin Zhui as an example. Although they have supported the club for many years, Da Qin Zhi Shui is not a socially oriented product. It is used more as the designated water for the Shaanxi National Games and for many business meetings, and locals are familiar with it. Even in most supermarkets and convenience stores, this product is not sold.
Some other investors said that the membership system launched by Shaanxi Chang'an Athletics was a very good attempt, but the timing of the launch was too hasty, and there were many imperfections in the setup, which was more like an attitude of 'our fan base is worth investing in' to the potential investors and the government with such an achievement.
Where is the future of Shaanxi soccer?
Despite once again experiencing the pain of losing a team, the future, this spring, will still be the most mentioned word in Shaanxi.
On March 29, the same day that Shaanxi Chang'an Athletic announced its dissolution, the Xi'an Municipal Government released the Xi'an Municipal National Football Development Key Cities Construction Work Program (2022-2025), which explicitly stated that we should adhere to the strong protection and emphasis on effectiveness, lay a foundation for steady improvement, and build a platform to seek breakthroughs in order to build a national key city for soccer development. The establishment of community (village)-street (town)-district (development zone)-city four-level soccer association management system; by 2025, we will strive to rebuild the city's various types of soccer venues at all levels of 200 yuan; an annual investment of no less than 30 million yuan for the construction of the national key city of soccer development and the cultivation of high-level soccer reserve talents.
Of course, soccer needs policy support from the city, but in terms of the history of soccer in Shaanxi, the team first needs to take root in the city and the community, cultivate a soccer culture, and make soccer accessible to everyone, rather than becoming a purely governmental image project and propaganda tool.
So, for a possible future Shaanxi team, cultivating a fan atmosphere is a top priority.
Indeed, professional sports reflect the strength of the local economy and culture from the side. The fact that Shaanxi keeps losing teams is regrettable and unfortunate, but to some extent it also reflects the fact that Shaanxi's ostensibly popular market is still not strong enough to support a team's survival.
As the saying goes, the Qin people do not have time to mourn themselves, and posterity mourns. Shaanxi Chang'an Athletics and Shaanxi fans are not alone in what is happening today.
