Shanghai SIPG F.C.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 07/2015
Full name
Shanghai SIPG Football Club
上海上港集团足球俱乐部
Founded
25 December 2005; 9 years ago
Ground
Shanghai Stadium
Capacity
56,842
Chairman
Jiang Haitao (姜海涛)
Head Coach
Sven-Göran Eriksson
League
Chinese Super League
2014
Super League, 5th
Shanghai SIPG F.C. (Chinese: 上海上港; pinyin: Shànghǎi Shànggǎng) is a professional football club that currently participates in the Chinese Super League under licence from the Chinese Football Association (CFA).
The team is based in Xuhui, Shanghai and their home stadium is the Shanghai Stadium that has a seating capacity of 56,842.
Their owners are the Chinese group Shanghai International Port (Group) and "SIPG" is an abbreviation of their name.
The club was founded on December 25, 2005 as Shanghai Dongya F.C. by former Chinese international football coach Xu Genbao.
The club would use graduates from Genbao Football Base, a football academy also founded by Xu to form their first team as they made their debut in the third tier of China's football league pyramid in the 2006 league season.
They would work there way up to the top tier and the highest position they have ever finished is fifth in the 2014 Chinese Super League season.
Shanghai Dongya also earns its fame largely because of its success in youth development.
In China, the team is sometimes nicknamed as "China's Manchester United", because of Xu's well-known ambition "to create a China's Manchester United".
HISTORY
Est.-2007: League Two
On May 16, 2000 former Chinese international football coach Xu Genbao founded the Genbao Football Base and enrolled 96 academy members born between 1988 and 1991, who were to be trained in the recently built Genbao Football Base Arena.
Initially, Xu Genbao had no intention of establishing a professional football club.
However as the youngsters in the Base grew up, the lack of youth football competition in China prompt Xu to set up a football club so that his protégés could earn match experiences in professional football.
On December 25, 2005, Shanghai Dongya Football Club was jointly established by Xu Genbao and Shanghai Dongya Sports and Culture Center Co. Ltd, with Xu Genbao being the club chairman.
Xu appointed Claude Lowitz, a French youth coach in the Base, as the team manager.
With young players aged between 14 and 17, Shanghai Dongya competed in the 2006 China League Two, the third tier of the Chinese league system.
The team played their home games at Genbao Football Base Arena training ground in Chongming, Shanghai, and eventually finished their first season at the seventh place.
During the campaign Xu's players broke a few records during the season, with Cao Yunding being the youngest Chinese goalscorer aged 16 years and 242 days, and Wu Lei the youngest Chinese professional footballer, aged only 14 years and 287 days.
At the end of 2006, Claude Lowitz left the club, and former assistant manager Jiang Bingyao took up the manager position.
With lessons learned and experiences gained from their debutante season, the young Dongya went on to win the division title in 2007, by beating Sichuan in the final, and thus gaining promotion to China League One, the second tier football league.
2008-2012: League One
Despite the successful promotion, questions arose as to what would happen to the team, especially given that Xu's previous effort to create a professional club (Shanghai Cable 02) ended up being sold off to Shanghai Shenhua in 2002 due to financial difficulties.
In June 2007, Shanghai government came to Xu's rescue with financial aid, in exchange Dongya would represent Shanghai in the 2009 National Games.
With the club in a higher division, Shanghai Dongya moved into the 30,000 seater Jinshan Sports Centre in Jinshan District of Shanghai and finished the 2008 China League One division campaign in a respectable sixth.
In summer 2009, Shanghai Dongya represent Shanghai football team and take part in the 2009 National Games.
Xu Genbao took up the management post himself and led the team to win the gold the men's football gold medal.
Meanwhile in the league, Shanghai Dongya chose the 65,000 seater Shanghai Stadium as their home stadium for their 2009 China League One campaign.
Shanghai Dongya finished the season in fourth place and just missed out on promotion by a single win, but such an achievement is still considered quite remarkable especially given that the team was made up of players under 20 years old, and no foreign players.
The 2010 league season saw former Chinese international Fan Zhiyi receive his first management job at the club as well as the introduction of their first ever foreign players in Macedonian Nikola Karçev and Haitian Fabrice Noël.
Despite these new signings the club failed to improve upon the previous season's results and finished in the fourth place.
Failure to gain promotion and financial difficulties caused the club unable to hold onto their rising stars.
Before the 2011 season, five of the team's starting XI left the club: team captain Wang Jiayu, Chinese international Zhang Linpeng and Chinese U-23 players Cao Yunding, Jiang Zhipeng, and Gu Chao.
In the following 2011 season, Xu Genbao promoted several young players into the first team and the team finished the season in a disappointing ninth place.
At the beginning of the 2012 season.
The club sold team name to a Sponsor, Zobon Group for 30 million Yuan on a three-year deal, which saw the club change first team's name to Shanghai Tellace on December 31, 2011, while the club name remains unchanged as Shanghai Dongya F.C.
At the end of the season, Shanghai Tellace won the league title and was promoted to Chinese Super League.
2013-present: CSL
On December 28, 2012 Shanghai Dongya changed its first team name again to Shanghai SIPG, under a 40-million Yuan sponsorship deal with Shanghai International Port (Group).
Within the off-season on January 7, 2013 the club officially acquired another Shanghai-based football club Shanghai Pudong Zobon, which had previously played in the 2012 China League Two division before they were dissolved.
Most of its players, born between 1993 and 1994 and graduated from Genbao Football Base, were brought back under Xu Genbao's wing and would become the reserve team of Shanghai Dongya F.C.
In the clubs debut within the top tier they brought in former Chinese national team manager Gao Hongbo as their Head coach and he would go on to guide the club to a ninth place finish at the end of the 2013 league season.
The Shanghai International Port (Group) would decide to strengthen their position within the club and officially took over the whole club on November 18, 2014 and immediately appointed Sven-Göran Eriksson as their new Head coach.
NAME HISTORY
• 2005-14: Shanghai East Asia F.C. (上海东亚)
• 2015- : Shanghai SIPG F.C. (上海上港)
Players