"With Wu Lei's return, can Chinese clubs buck the trend of overseas star hunting?"

Back in July, Marca broke the news that Chen Yansheng was interested in selling Espanyol, and although the club's executives were quick to dispel the rumors, the numbers don't lie. The data shows that since the acquisition of Espanyol by Star Entertainment, the company under Chen Yansheng's banner has earned a total of $341 million from 2016 to 2020. However, Spaniard lost $313 million in 2021, leaving the company in a tight financial position. As of the first quarter of 2022, Starlight Entertainment had only $206 million in money funds, while short-term borrowings amounted to $692 million, along with $748 million in goodwill to be digested. The external valuation of the Spaniard club reached 200 million euros, in this context, Starlight Entertainment sale of Spaniard seems to have become an inevitable choice. Sadly, in the wave of many Chinese clubs have ventured into the overseas market, the Spaniards have become one of the few long-term persistence and success of the club. In early 2016, Star Entertainment acquired a 54% stake in Espanyol FC and became the majority shareholder. Chen Yansheng and his team formed a new board of directors, with Chen himself serving as the club's chairman. Unlike Chinese-funded clubs such as Aston Villa and AC Milan, which frequently change investors, Starlight Entertainment has been running the club seriously for several years after acquiring Espanyol, allowing the team to gradually climb up the La Liga ladder and eventually qualify for Europe in the 2018-19 season. Despite the team's unfortunate relegation in 2020, they returned to La Liga in just one season. ! [History of Espanyol FC](https://www.ballti.com/UploadFiles/Sinaimg/202208/2022081600564715283722493.png) As a Chinese-funded club, Espanyol is also committed to promoting the development of Chinese soccer. Wu Lei is not the first Chinese player signed by Espanyol. Back in 2016, Spaniards signed 18-year-old Chinese youngster Xuxu, but Xuxu's path to staying in China did not go well and left Spaniards soon after. Since then, the Spaniards have turned their attention to Wu Lei, and have assured Shanghai SIPG that there will be no "export to domestic sales". After the Chinese soccer community reached a consensus to let players stay in the ocean exercise, Wanda had a large-scale organization of young players to go to Portugal and other countries to stay in the ocean to learn, Qianbao, Volkswagen has also tried to send Zhang Xizhe, Zhang Qindong through the sponsorship of the way to the top five teams, but these attempts ultimately ended in failure. Only the acquisition of European clubs by Chinese capital, only for Chinese players to provide a road to stay in the ocean. ! [History of Espanyol FC](https://www.ballti.com/UploadFiles/Sinaimg/202208/2022081600564770987812493.png) In addition to Spaniards, Wolves signed youngster He Weiyu in 2018; Hong Kong Champions League Holdings Limited has signed men's and women's soccer internationals Li Lei and Zhang Linyan in the past two years after acquiring Grasshoppers Zurich in 2020; Auxerre, a Chinese-funded team that has just been promoted to the French Ligue 1, has also been actively pushing for cooperation with the CFA, in the hope of getting Chinese youth players to form a team to stay in the ocean. However, the reality is not as smooth as in the plan, He Weiyu late to get the opportunity to play for Wolves in the Premier League, Li Lei in the 22-23 season so far only for Grasshoppers Zurich debut, as for the football association organized youth team to France or Croatia to participate in the tournament also delayed no progress. ! [Espanyol FC History](https://www.ballti.com/UploadFiles/Sinaimg/202208/2022081600564783460922493.png) The truth is that Wu Lei's success at Espanyol cannot be directly replicated. The basis for all this success stems first and foremost from Star Entertainment's long-term, stable operation of Espanyol. In the wave of Chinese-funded acquisitions of European clubs a few years ago, there was no shortage of top-tier clubs in European soccer like AC Milan and Inter Milan. However, the Chinese capital into AC Milan quickly experienced a high start and low finish, the beginning of the season crazy investment attracted fans chanting "We are so rich", but at the end of the season because of the inability to repay the high amount of debt by Elliott to take away the club. Inter Milan although in the era of Chinese capital to get a long absence of the league title, but in the loss of Suning Group's help, the club in recent years is also plagued by financial problems, and in 2021 even to the oak tree capital loan of 242 million euros. Aston Villa also had financial problems, and eventually had to sell the club to NSWE. When these Chinese-funded clubs are in constant trouble themselves, how can they talk about helping Chinese players. ! [History of Espanyol FC](https://www.ballti.com/UploadFiles/Sinaimg/202208/2022081600564799052032493.png) Although Wolves, like Spaniards, have a long-term plan and remain in the middle and upper echelon of the Premier League, they are in the Premier League, where overseas players need to obtain a labor permit, after Wang Frost finally gave up her plan to play in the Premier League because of the labor permit issue. Under these conditions, it will become more and more difficult for He Zhuoyu to represent Wolves in the Premier League. On the other hand, it is impossible to ignore the problem of Chinese players' own strength. Even though Wu Lei has been criticized by fans, he cannot hide the fact that he is the best player in Chinese soccer in recent years. Despite China's poor showing in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers, Wu Lei scored 12 goals in the qualifiers, second only to Ali Mabhout in Asia, and higher than the likes of Takumi Nanno and Azmoun, who also traveled to Europe. That's how Wu Lei was able to get a game at Espanyol, eventually becoming the first Chinese player to score in La Liga. ! [History of FC Espanyol](https://www.ballti.com/UploadFiles/Sinaimg/202208/2022081600564807784232493.png) After Wu Lei's return to China, the Chinese soccer world is hard to find players with the strength to play in the top five leagues. The obsession with getting European clubs to accept players from their own countries is sometimes counterproductive. At the same time as the Chinese capital to buy European clubs, Japanese companies had also joined the ranks. 2017, the Japanese Internet giant DMM stationed in the Bundesliga St. Tilden club, since then the club has become the Japanese players in Europe to stay in the base, which Kamada Earth, Endo Hang and Tomoyasu Kenyo from here to the five big leagues. DMM has since continued to operate J-League players to St. Tilden, with as many as six Japanese players in the 2018-19 squad at one point. ! [Japanese players staying in Europe](https://www.ballti.com/UploadFiles/Sinaimg/202208/2022081600564814944632493.png) By the 2021-22 season, the number of Japanese players in St. Tilden's lineup was even as high as eight, but only a few players, such as goalkeeper Schmidt (of Japanese-American mix), were actually able to get a stable chance to play, and the rest of the players could only become fringe characters in the team due to their strength. In the middle of the season, St. Tilden suffered five consecutive defeats, and finally ended the season in 9th place in the Bundesliga, with no chance to qualify for the Champions League playoffs or the European Championships. St. Tilden's fans have expressed their dissatisfaction in recent years with the inability of the Japanese players to improve the club's performance. Only 6,000 St. Tilden fans showed up for the derby against Henck last September, and many of them protested against the club in this way. Local journalists even said that the club was in crisis, and that the growing distance between the club and its fans needed to be taken seriously by the top management. St. Tilden's management made a compromise and reduced the number of Japanese players in the team before the start of the 2022-23 season, leaving only goalkeeper Schmidt, defender Hashioka Daiki, midfielder Kagawa Shinji and striker Hayashi Daichi. ! [FC St. Turten Crisis](https://www.ballti.com/UploadFiles/Sinaimg/202208/2022081600564822127342493.png) Going to Europe to play in a high-level league is undoubtedly the desire of all Asian players, but the high-level league also means that more intense competition and a more harsh environment for survival, not all Asian players can adapt to the European football scene, the road to stay in the ocean iron still need to be hard. For European clubs, they are certainly willing to sign more overseas players, which is beneficial to clubs to develop overseas markets. Take Bayern Munich as an example, after signing the Japanese player Usami Takashi in 2011, they have never given up signing players from East Asia, and in 2018 they signed the South Korean player Zheng Youying, and around 2022 they signed the Chinese player Liu Shao Ziyang and the South Korean player Lee Hyun-ju. ! [Bayern Munich sign Asian players](https://www.ballti.com/UploadFiles/Sinaimg/202208/2022081600564830230752493.png) At the beginning of 2021, Bayern Munich and Wuhan Sanzhen reached a cooperation agreement to work together on the cultivation of Chinese youth players, and Liu Shao Ziyang became the first player cultivated by the two clubs together. After joining Bayern Munich, Liu Shao Ziyang was loaned to Austrian club Klafingen. However, the 18-year-old Chinese youngster also had to face the problem of adapting quickly to the European league, after Takashi Usami and Zheng Youying both failed to stay in Bayern Munich for this reason. Since the late 1980s, when the likes of Liu Haiguang, Jia Xiuquan and Gu Guangming traveled to Europe to play soccer, Chinese players staying in the world has become an enduring topic. Nowadays, it is worthwhile for everyone in the Chinese soccer world to think about why this road has become more and more difficult for Chinese players.