Guangzhou City Football Club is ushering in the spring breeze of equity reform, Fortune Group may gradually withdraw, Guangzhou City team will turn over a whole new chapter.
Rational investment, cost-effective reinforcements, the pursuit of beautiful soccer ...... These words are closely related to the soccer operation of R&F for many years. Especially in 2011, the successful celebration of the Super League, Fuli boss Zhang Li that "the price of salted vegetables, cooking the taste of roasted goose," the famous words, still let people enjoy. In retrospect, if the rational business model of that time can become the norm, then the current Chinese soccer league may have a very different scene.
People are curious as to how much money R&F has invested in its soccer investment over a decade. Although the club has not formally disclosed the specific data, but each year in the attraction, player wages on the expenditure, there have been many reports, can be roughly estimated. R&F's investment in soccer, a rough estimate of not less than 3 billion, this figure and those who often invested 2 billion a year compared to the club, seems particularly calm.
In the 2011 season, Guangzhou R&F's success in the Super League, Zhang Li's famous words at the celebration banquet, "using the price of salted vegetables, cooking the taste of roast goose" became a topic of discussion among fans. Many R&F fans even laughed at themselves as "I am salty".
There was a small story about Guangzhou R&F's derby win over red-hot Evergrande at the Tianhe Stadium, and after the match, the club felt bad for making fun of the "Salty Army's attack on Tianti" report.
"Cooking a roast goose at the price of pickles" embodies a rational philosophy of soccer management, which was indeed difficult for some fans to understand at that time. But ten years later, rational management has proved to be crucial, and stable development is fundamental. A person close to R&F said, "Follow the law, even if the road is long, long time, will eventually succeed; on the contrary, if you do not follow the law, doomed to failure. Chinese professional soccer, it is with ten years of development to verify this point."
At the 2017 Guangdong Sports Industry Forum, Huang Shenghua, chairman of Guangzhou R&F Football Club, delivered a speech stating that "it is difficult for a soccer club that is unable to be self-sustainable to develop sustainably."
At the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019, China's soccer reform entered a bottleneck, and Chen Xuyuan, the chairman of Shanghai SIPG FC, and Zhang Li, the investor of Guangzhou R&F FC, became the double head of the reform. Despite the fact that Zhang Li and Chen Xuyuan had many face-to-face exchanges, and Huang Shenghua briefly served as the head of the professional league in his capacity as chairman of Guangzhou R&F FC, the reform of the professional league that R&F was involved in ultimately came to an end without any problems. Today, there is still the view that if Zhang Li was directly involved in the reform of professional soccer four years ago, the situation might have been different.
June 23, 2011, R&F Group acquired Shenzhen Phoenix, the coaching team at the time did not change, Li Shubin led Guangzhou R&F super success.
At the beginning of 2012, Guangzhou R&F poached Brazilian coach Farias from South Korea's K-League, who had previously led South Korea's Pohang Steelers to the AFC Championship. Farias came to China with nine large suitcases full of professional training equipment brought from Brazil.
Before Farias took over Guangzhou R&F, most of the players could only support 70 minutes of physical fitness, and were jokingly called the "cramp team". However, after the winter training in early 2012, the physical condition of the players has improved significantly. The professional training equipments brought by Farias played a role, through the advanced physical testing equipment, the players in training for a number of skills indicators test, the physical coach will carefully collect and organize all the players' data, and then according to the data to develop the next day's training plan.
During the Farias era, Ice Bucket Rehabilitation Hydrotherapy became a key tool in the recovery of Fulham players, who entered ice buckets of ice and cold water stirred together after training to rehabilitate, reversing the previous traditional training model. Ice Bucket Rehabilitation Hydrotherapy was brought in by Clayton, who was part of Farias' coaching team.
A year and a half later, Farias left and Inaha continued his work with other teams in the Chinese professional league, and also introduced his son Inaha Jr. to the Chinese league, serving as a fitness coach for Guizhou Renhe, Wuhan, and a number of other teams. Clayton was the rehabilitation coach for the Brazilian delegation at the Beijing Summer Olympics. After Farias' departure, Clayton remained at R&F to assist subsequent coach Eriksson, and worked with Eriksson at Shanghai SIPG and Shenzhen Jiazhaoye.
In the middle of the 2013 season, Guangzhou R&F brought in former England manager Eriksson. In the 2014 season, Eriksson led Guangzhou R&F to the best result in the team's history - third place in the Chinese Super League and a playoff for the AFC Champions League. At the end of 2014, Eriksson received an invitation from Shanghai SIPG, the other side offered more than double the annual salary conditions, Fulani decided to let him go. 2015 season, Eriksson as Shanghai SIPG head coach, the same year also took away the Fulani foreign aid Davy.
After that, Guangzhou R&F introduced the La Liga team Getafe's head coach, Antonio Contreras, a Romanian who has his own unique technical and tactical skills. 2015 season AFC Champions League and the Chinese Super League double-front battle, R&F's own squad shortage of problems appeared, Contreras in the middle of the 2015 season, becoming the shortest foreign coach in the history of R&F team coaching time. After the departure of Conteira, the then assistant coach Li Bing served as a transition coach, and then ushered in Stojkovic. Stojkovic's four years of coaching at R&F is the process of R&F proposing rational investment in soccer clubs and scaling down soccer investment. During these four years, players such as Jiang Zhipeng and Wang Song left and a number of utility players were introduced.
Stojkovic's four years of coaching at Fuli, the pursuit of "beautiful soccer" of the pass-control style of play, the spectacle is very strong. 2017 season, Fuli Premier League ranked fifth, then ranked in the top four are Evergrande, SIPG, Quanjian and Huaxia Happiness, the team's investment is several times more than the Fuli. Huang Zhengyu was the best U23 player of the 2017 season and Xavi was the best player in the league. Stojkovic was nominated for Best Coach, even though the best coach in the Chinese Super League that year was Tianjin Quanjian manager Carlos Cannavaro, who was considered the "uncrowned king".
At the end of the 2019 season, Stojkovic left R&F, and soon after was hired as the head coach of the Serbian national team, and his Japanese assistant coach Katsushige Ki Iron Do during his coaching days at R&F joined the coaching staff of the Serbian team, and in 2021, the "old R&F coaching staff" led the Serbian team to reach the final round of the World Cup in Qatar.
After Sto's departure, Dutchman Van Bronckhorst and his assistant Van Garst became successively in charge of Fuli (later Guangzhou City), with Van Garst taking Guangzhou City into the title contention group in the 2021 season.
Rational investment, after all aspects of the conditions of consideration, "accurate" selection of candidates to meet their own, R&F in the selection of the level of the manager of the work is quite good, in the introduction of foreign aid is also the same, also achieved good results.
Focusing on the introduction of cost-effective foreign aid, R&F has had many successes in attracting foreign aid. From Davy, Hammad to Renaldinho, from Zhang Xianxiu to Zahavi to Guilherme, these players have performed well in the Chinese Super League, of which Zahavi can be called the representative figure of the introduction of foreign aid in the Chinese Super League. Zahavi scored 91 goals and created 24 assists for Guangzhou R&F in the Chinese Super League, won two Chinese Super League Golden Boots, and was awarded one Chinese Super League MVP, Zahavi's role cannot be underestimated. In the honor room of Guangzhou R&F Football Club, a huge photo of Xavi hangs in the middle, and next to it hangs Xavi's No.7 jersey.
In the domestic player level, Fuli also attaches considerable importance to their own training of players, if a player is fancy, can accept the "high transfer", which Jiang Zhipeng, Jin Yangyang transferred to Huaxia Happiness, Wang Song transferred to Jiangsu Suning and other operations, have made Fuli in the time of the lucrative income.
Perhaps there will be no more participation in Guangzhou City FC, but Fortune is not completely out of soccer, at least at the youth training level, they still continue to operate.
After committing to a professional soccer club, Fortune quickly realized the importance of reserve talents, they established the Meixian Fortune Football School and promoted school soccer and soccer youth training in Guangzhou and Guangdong province. They are serious when it comes to youth training. In recent years, R&F has introduced a team of Japanese youth training coaches, and the teaching and training work of the Meixian R&F Soccer School has been steadily advancing, and the effect of youth training has been initially apparent, whether it is the Meixian R&F Soccer School or Guangzhou's youth training system, all of which have players selected for national youth teams and junior teams at all levels.
In the process of Guangzhou City's stock reform, the club quietly changed in the youth training system and the management system of Meixian Football School, the club level sent executives specifically responsible for the management of Meixian R&F Football School. In the past two years, the players of Meixian Fuli Soccer School and Guangzhou City 03 age group players as the base to participate in the Championship League, and strive for an early rush to the Chinese B League, from the team's performance, the future is full of hope.
From the perspective of long-term development, even if the final no longer participate in the Guangzhou City Club, Meixian Fortune Football School has left an important soccer flame for Guangzhou Fortune's soccer sentiment. Perhaps when the real estate market changes in the future, R&F will likely return to the professional league stage again.
