Zhejiang Greentown F.C.

Zhejiang Greentown
Zhèjiāng Lǜchéng
浙江绿城

Full name	Zhejiang Greentown FC 浙江绿城足球俱乐部
Nickname(s)	Greentown 绿城 Green Giants 绿巨人 Team Zhejiang 浙江队
Founded	14 January 1998 (1998-01-14)
Ground	Hangzhou Huanglong Stadium
Capacity	52,672
Owner	Song Weiping
Manager	Sergi Barjuán
League	China League One
2017	League One, 9th
Website	Club website
Home colours Away colours

Zhejiang Greentown Football Club (simplified Chinese: 浙江绿城; traditional Chinese: 浙江綠城; pinyin: Zhèjiāng Lǜchéng) is a professional Chinese football club that currently participates in the China League One division (second division) under licence from the Chinese Football Association (CFA). The team is based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang and their home stadium is the Hangzhou Huanglong Stadium that has a seating capacity of 52,672. The club's main investor is the Zhejiang-based Greentown China Holdings Limited company, which is owned by real estate tycoon Song Weiping. Greentown became the first sports club from Hangzhou with 1 million followers on Weibo.

The club was founded on January 14, 1998 and they made their debut in the third tier of China's football league pyramid in the 1999 league season. On November 23, 2000 the club bought the first team of Jilin Aodong as well as their position in the second division for 25 million Yuan. They have subsequently won promotion to the top tier after finishing runners-up in the 2006 league season and the highest position they have ever finished is fourth in the 2010 Chinese Super League season.

History

Zhejiang Greentown Football Club Co., Ltd. was officially established on January 14, 1998 with a capital of 16,000,000 Yuan and Zeng Leming was appointed as their general manager. Greentown Real Estate Company, Hangzhou Qiantang Real Estate Company, Zhejiang University and Zhejiang Provincial Football Association all participated in the creation as well as the registration of the club.^[1] The company would go on to form a youth team before finally creating a senior team on January 22, 1999 to take part in the third tier with Bao Yingfu as their first head coach. They wouldn't wait long to show their ambition when they would make the play-offs in 2000 before losing to Tianjin Lifei.^[2] Still determined to win promotion the club decided to buy the first team of Jilin Aodong as well as their position in Chinese Football Association Jia League on November 23, 2000 for 25,000,000 Yuan, in time for the beginning of the 2001 league season. Under the new general manager Shen Qiang the club brought in new sponsors and Gu Mingchang as the new Head coach, however during this period the club couldn't win promotion to the top tier and the Chairman Song Weiping expressed his disappointment of the team. Song Weiping would soon discover that the reason for his clubs disappointing results when it was discovered that several of his players and coaches were taking bribes, with a 6–0 defeat against Changchun Yatai in the 2001 league season being highlighted, which saw the offending participants banned for a year while the club had three months to reform and re-apply for a CFA playing license.^[3] This would see the club would go through several management changes as well as a significant ownership shift, which saw Song Weiping's company Greentown China Holdings Limited take a 96% share of the team for 20,000,000 Yuan in 2005 while Zhejiang University held on to 4%.^[1]

Under Wang Zheng as their Head coach the team would start to generally push for promotion, eventually achieving it at the end of the 2006 league season when they came second in the division.^[4] The club often found themselves fighting off relegation and would bring in several managers to alleviate the problem, however this wasn't enough during the 2009 league season and the club found themselves in the relegation zone at the end of the season. Surprisingly the club were allowed to stay within the 2010 Chinese Super League after it was discovered that Chengdu Blades and Guangzhou FC were guilty of match-fixing.^[5] After gaining a reprieve from relegation the club went on a spending spree by signing several established Chinese internationals such as Du Wei, Li Yan and Wang Song.^[6] The signings seemed to work and the clubs results significantly improved throughout the 2010 league campaign, which saw the club achieve their best ever finish of fourth and a chance to play within the AFC Champions League for the first time.^[7]

This club is known for its outstanding football academy and youth training facilities. However, they were relegated to the China League One after getting second-to-last place in the 2016 Chinese super League because of their bad performances for the season with only 8 wins and 32 points, struggled in demotes.^[8]

Aimed to take the crown in the football competition of 2017 National Games of China, Hangzhou Greentown adopted a risky youngster-first policy which was more radical than ever. But good wishes were all vain. In 2017, the team struggled near the relegation zone in their first season of China League One while the youngsters who formed the Team Zhejiang watched the championship slipped away in the final. Young trainer Xu Lei filled in manager Hong Myung-bo’s shoes and the team finally ranked 9th in the league. Meanwhile, former player and veteran Jiao Fengbo also returned as the new general manager.

On 14 January 2018, the club changed their name back to Zhejiang Greentown F.C. for the 20th anniversary of the club.^[9]

Name history

• 2002 Renamed Zhejiang Greentown (浙江绿城)
• 2003 Renamed Zhejiang Sanhua Greentown (浙江三花绿城)
• 2004 Renamed Zhejiang Greentown (浙江绿城)
• 2006 Renamed Zhejiang Babei Greentown (浙江巴贝绿城房产)
• 2007 Renamed Zhejiang Greentown (浙江绿城房产)
• 2009 Renamed Hangzhou Greentown (杭州绿城)
• 2010 Renamed Hangzhou Nabel Greentown (杭州诺贝尔绿城)
• 2011 Renamed Hangzhou Greentown (杭州绿城)
• 2012 Renamed Hangzhou 9Top Greentown (杭州九好绿城)
• 2013 Renamed Hangzhou Daikin Greentown (杭州大金绿城)
• 2014 Renamed Hangzhou Greentown (杭州绿城)
• 2018 Renamed Zhejiang Greentown (浙江绿城)

Current squad

As of 2 March 2018 ^[10]

First team

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 1 GK Fan Jinming 2 MF Wang Guanyi 3 DF Wang Yang 5 MF Fan Baiqun 6 DF Chen Xiao 7 MF Zhu Haiwei 8 DF Cheng Mouyi 9 FW Dino Ndlovu 10 MF Edu García 11 MF Huang Shibo 12 DF Tong Lei 15 DF Ye Churu 16 DF Xu Xiaolong 17 MF Chen Po-liang 19 FW Dong Yu

No. Position Player 20 MF Zhong Haoran 21 FW Wu Haoyi 22 MF Cheng Jin 23 GK Zou Dehai 24 DF Jin Haoxiang 25 MF Xu Yike 26 FW Tan Yang 28 DF Yue Xin 29 MF Li Xingcan 34 GK Zhang Lei 35 FW Rafael Martins 36 DF Song Haiwang 37 DF Cao Xiaodong 39 DF Xu Jizu 43 DF Sun Zheng'ao

Reserve squad

As of 2 March 2018

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 18 MF Dai Lijie 31 FW Đorđe Rakić 33 MF Fang Renwei 41 MF Luo Jing 42 MF Zang Yifeng 46 FW He Jian 47 MF Li Chen 48 DF Xie Deshun 49 DF Han Lieguang 50 DF Shen Jiaming 51 GK Shen Bokai

No. Position Player 52 DF Liang Qingjie 54 GK Kou Jiahao 55 DF Lu Hao 56 FW Shao Renzhe 57 MF Feng Qiaofeng 58 DF Hu Xianbing 59 MF Shi Pengqing 60 MF Huang Jingfeng 61 DF Zhao Yuan 63 MF Zhang Yue 64 MF Guo Yongchu

Coaching staff

As of 14 March 2018 ^[11]

Position	Staff
Team leader	Rong Yu
Head coach	Sergi Barjuán
Assistant coach	Ramón de Quintana Zheng Xiong Wu Wei
Goalkeeping coach	Zdravko Zdravkov
Technical analyst	Vicente Fuensalida Gao Rongxin
Fitness coach	Jaume Moll
U-19 team coach	Fujio Yamamoto
U-19 team assistant coach	Kosuke Yatsuda
U-17 team coach	Yasuharu Kurata
U-14 team coach	Masahiro Kobe
U-11 team coach	Taichi Obata
Translator	Yue Zhang Lin Zihe Miao Lixiang
Team doctor	Weng Hui Zhang Chengxi Chen Weiwei

Honours

Results

All-time League rankings

As of the end of 2017 season.^[15][16]

• ^1 In group stages. ^2 Buy the first team of Jilin Aodong as well as their position in second tier. ^3 Two Super League clubs were involved in match-fixing scandal and relegated to League One, so Hangzhou could stay at top level.

Key