Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao F.C.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 02/2015
Full name:
Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao Football Club
广州恒大淘宝足球俱乐部
Nickname:
Southern China Tigers (华南虎)
Founded:
June 1954; 60 years ago (Semi-professional)
January 1993; 22 years ago (Professional)
Ground:
Tianhe Stadium, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
Capacity:
58,500
Owner:
Evergrande Real Estate (50%)
Alibaba (50%)
Chairman:
Kang Bing
Manager:
Fabio Cannavaro
League:
Super League
2014
Super League, 1st
Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao Football Club is a Chinese professional football club that currently participates in the Chinese Super League.
The team is based in Guangzhou, Guangdong, and their home stadium is the Tianhe Stadium, which has a seating capacity of 58,500.
Their current majority shareholders with 50% each are the Evergrande Real Estate Group and the e-commerce company Alibaba Group.
Originally founded in 1954, their biggest achievements were winning several second-tier division titles before they became professional in 1993 and achieved an upswing in results, leading to a runners-up spot in China's top division.
Unable to improve upon these results the club would go through a period of stagnation and then decline before they experienced a brief revival when they won the 2007 second division.
However, in 2009 the club were embroiled in a match-fixing scandal.
This saw them punished with relegation.
However, the Evergrande Real Estate Group decided to purchase the club and pumped significant funds into the team, which saw them immediately win promotion as well as gain their first ever top-tier title in the following campaign in the 2011 season.
The club won its first AFC Champions League title in the 2013 season, becoming the first Chinese football club to win the continental title in its current format.
The club subsequently finished fourth place in the 2013 FIFA Club World Cup.
HISTORY
In June 1954, the local Guangzhou sports body founded Guangzhou F.C. to take part in the recently formed Chinese national football league and entered the club in the 1955 league season where they named Luo Dizhi as their first manager who guided them to an eighth spot finish in their debut campaign.
Unfortunately for Guangzhou, the league had grown to incorporate a second tier and their debut season performance final standing would see them relegated to the second division.
Guangzhou would nevertheless go on to win the division championship, however the Chinese Football Association decided to restructure the league at the beginning of the 1957 season and Guangzhou were denied promotion.
Despite this, Luo Rongman managed the team to win the 1958 second division title.
However, the club were unable to gain promotion because this time they went into receivership and were not officially re-established until April 1961 where they were allowed to take part in the top tier.
Back within the top division Guangzhou often struggled within the league and were once again relegated to the second tier at the end of the 1963 league season where they remained until 1966 when the Cultural Revolution halted football in China.
When the Chinese football league restarted, Guangzhou took the unusual step of abstaining from the competition and instead on 26 October 1977 brought Luo Rongman to manage in their development of their youth team.
The team would play within the National Youth League until 1980 when it was decided that they were mature enough to play in the football league pyramid and started in the recently created third division.
The club's youth team development would immediately pay-off and players such as Mai Chao, Zhao Dayu and later Wu Qunli would all rapidly rise into Chinese international footballers that would see Guangzhou gain successive promotions until they reached the top tier.
The harsh realities of the top division would hit the young players when at the end of the 1982 league season Guangzhou were relegated at the end of the campaign.
With the club able to hold on to their young talent they would eventually return to the top division at the end of the 1984 season, via the Chinese FA Cup.
With this promotion on 1 October 1984, the club would be the first Chinese team to gain sponsorship when Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. signed a $200,000 annual deal with the club.
Throughout the 1990s, the Chinese Football Association were demanding more professionalism from their football teams and while many were semi-professional, Guangzhou would be one of the first fully professional football clubs in China after the Apollo Group took over the club on 8 January 1993.
Initially the investment would aid the manager Zhou Suian to help create a competitive squad and with Hu Zhijun going on to win the top goalscoring award Guangzhou were able to gain a runners-up spot at the 1994 league season.
The following season Zhou Suian left the team despite having twice guided the club to a runners-up position within the league as well as a runners up spot against Shanghai Greenland Shenhua in the 1991 Chinese FA Cup.
After his exit, the club were unable to replicate the same results and when influential international footballers Peng Weiguo and Hu Zhijun left the club, the team would go into free fall and were relegated at the end of the 1998 league season.
With the management concerned about the team's insipid display, an investigation was launched which discovered that Wen Junwu and three other players were in collusion with gambling groups and were immediately expelled from the club.
In 2001, the Guangzhou Sports Bureau took over the club once again and with significant investment coming from the Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., Ltd it was hoped that the club could push for promotion.
However, the division was rocked by a match-fixing scandal involving Changchun Yatai, Chengdu Wuniu, Jiangsu Sainty and Zhejing Greentown saw Guangzhou's new sponsors Geely immediately pull their funding from the team to distant themselves from the bad publicity.
This would see the club go through a tough transitional period until the Sunray Cave Group took over the club in 2004 and started to invest money in hopes of pushing for promotion.
When the Guangzhou Pharmaceuticals group took over the club in 2006, they were able to realize the ambition of gaining promotion when the club won the 2007 division title and entry to the Chinese Super League.
In February 2010, Guangzhou was relegated back to the China League One in the fallout of a match-fixing scandal despite having achieved a ninth place finish in the previous 2009 season.
The match in question was the 19 August 2006 league game against Shanxi Luhu, which saw Guangzhou win 5:1 when they were still playing in the China League One.
It was discovered by the police that the Guangzhou general manager Yang Xu paid ¥200,000 to the opposing general manager Wang Po to secure a win at home and that Guangzhou's vice president's Wu Xiaodong and Xie Bin knew about it.
With the offending participants sentenced to jail for fraud, the club was put up for sale.
On 28 February 2010, Evergrande Real Estate Group took over the club for a fee of ¥100 million and Xu Jiayin, chairman of Evergrande Real Estate Group, said that they would pump more funds into the transfer market.
His first act was to sign in Chinese national team striker Gao Lin from Shanghai Greenland Shenhua for a reported fee of ¥6 million, then he replaced the previously existing head coach Peng Weiguo with former Beijing Guoan manager Lee Jang-Soo with no indication.
In the 2010 summer transfer window, the club signed Sun Xiang, the first Chinese footballer to play in the UEFA Champions League with PSV Eindhoven, and Chinese national team captain Zheng Zhi on 28 June 2010.
Two days later, on 30 June 2010, Guangzhou confirmed that they had signed Muriqui on a four-year deal from Campeonato Brasileiro Série A side Atlético Mineiro with a domestic record fee of ¥23 million.
On 30 October 2010, Guangzhou successfully achieved League One champion for the second time and returned to Super League after a 3:1 victory to Hunan Billows.
During the 2011 season, Guangzhou Evergrande further strengthened its squad with the purchase of Argentinean Dario Conca and Brazilian Cléo.
Although the team was promoted to the Super League in the first year, they clinched the league title in late September 2011 although there were four games yet to play.
In March 2012, Guangzhou played and won their first ever AFC Champions League match, thrashing Korean champions Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors 5:1.
In addition, Paraguayan Lucas Barrios left the German champions Borussia Dortmund in the summer of 2012 to join Guangzhou Evergrande.
Marcello Lippi replaced Lee Jang-Soo as the head coach and brought in South Korean defender Kim Young-Gwon and Chinese midfielder Huang Bowen.
Guangzhou was knocked out of the 2012 AFC Champions League when they lost 5:4 on aggregate to Al-Ittihad in the quarterfinals.
They were the first Chinese side to reach the quarterfinals since 2006.
During the 2012 season, Guangzhou won the league for the second time in a row, becoming the first team in China to win the Super League title twice in a row, while also securing the Chinese FA Cup and Super Cup to become double winners for 2012.
In the 2013 season, Guangzhou Evergrande strengthened their squad by signing Chinese goalkeeper Zeng Cheng and Brazilian Elkeson.
This proved to be beneficial to Guangzhou as they became the first team in China to win the Super League three times in a row.
The club also won the 2013 AFC Champions League in the final against FC Seoul, after drawing 2:2 in the first leg in Seoul and 1:1 in the second leg in Guangzhou, becoming the first Chinese side to win the tournament following the away goals rule.
By winning the AFC Champions League, Guangzhou was assured a place in the 2013 FIFA Club World Cup, entering in the quarter-finals, beating the African champions Al-Ahly 2:0.
In the semi-finals, they were defeated by the European champions Bayern Munich 3:0.
In the third place match, the club lost against South American champions Atletico Mineiro 3:2 and finished fourth place on the international stage.