With the first stage of the league coming to an end, the Harbourmen had a two-week break. After returning to the team, under the leadership of Coach Leko, the team went into full gear to prepare for the match. Although the second phase of the league is expected to kick off in December, the AFC Cup will be played in mid-October, and the coaching team is carefully selecting players based on training performance and squad needs.
Meanwhile, in order to test the results of the recent training, the Harbour's first team played a warm-up match with a mixed team consisting of players from the All-China Football Team this afternoon. As a result, the Harbour team scored two goals each in the first and second halves and won easily with a score of 4:0. The goals were scored by Li Shenglong, He Jiao and Liu Zhurun who scored twice.
However, Lopez suffered an unfortunate injury and basically said goodbye for the rest of the season. Since joining the club, Lopes has been alone in Shanghai, separated from his family. After consultation between the club and the player, it was decided to arrange for him to return to Brazil for treatment, which would also allow him to reunite with his family and children. In recent years, Harbour have done well in controlling injuries, but this year seems to have been less fortunate in the case of Maes and Lopes. It was not easy for the whole team to persevere under the intensive schedule of 3 days and 1 match.
This year has been a brand new journey for all teams, with each interval almost equal in length to the winter preparation period, requiring teams to be well prepared at the end of the interval. The intensity of Coach Leko's training sessions is designed to help players prepare for all phases of the game. Since the beginning of the year, the team's commitment has been maintained at a consistently high level, with several local young players, in particular, showing great potential.
It's worth noting that Oscar's recovery is going well and was originally expected to take six weeks to return, but now it looks like he's on track to be back in 3-4 weeks.
