Beijing Renhe F.C.

Beijing Renhe
Běijīng Rénhé
北京人和

Full name	Beijing Renhe Football Club 北京人和足球俱乐部
Founded	February 3, 1995 (1995-02-03)
Ground	Beijing Fengtai Stadium, Beijing
Capacity	31,043
Owner	Renhe Commercial Holdings Company Limited Dai Yongge Xiuli Hawken
Chairman	Gong Lei
Head coach	Luis García Plaza
League	Chinese Super League
2017	League One, 2nd (promoted)
Website	Club website
Home colours Away colours

Beijing Renhe Football Club (Chinese: 北京人和; pinyin: Běijīng Rénhé) is a professional Chinese football club that currently participates in the Chinese Super League under licence from the Chinese Football Association (CFA). The team is based in Fengtai, Beijing and their home stadium is the Beijing Fengtai Stadium that has a seating capacity of 31,043. Their current majority shareholder is Chinese property developers of shopping centers Renhe Commercial Holdings Company Limited.

The club was founded in Pudong, Shanghai in February 3, 1995 and were originally known as Shanghai Pudong before they made their debut in the third tier of China's football league pyramid in the 1995 league season. They would work there way up to the top tier while changing name to accommodate their sponsors. In the 2006 league season the club would relocate the team to Shaanxi and rename themselves Xi'an Chanba International, however by the 2012 league season, the club relocated this time to Guizhou, and changed their name to Guizhou Renhe.^[1] In the 2016 league season the club relocated the team to Fengtai, Beijing, and changed their name to Beijing Renhe. Throughout the clubs history their greatest achievement has been winning the 2013 Chinese FA Cup while the highest position they have ever finished was second within the 2003 league season.

History

The club was founded on February 3, 1995 in Pudong, Shanghai to take part in the recently formed fully professional football league system and they started at the bottom of the football pyramid in the third division, where they named themselves Shanghai Pudong. Playing in all blue in their debut season, they would immediately taste success when they won the division title and promotion to the second tier.^[2] The following seasons, however, saw the team languish within the division until they brought in Xu Genbao to manage the side at the beginning of the 2000 season and would make the club promotion contenders. Under Xu Genbao's leadership, they didn't have to wait long to win promotion when they would go on to win the division title at the end of the season and a chance to play in the top tier.^[3] Under the ownership of Shanghai Yungtay Engineering and COSCO Real Estate, the club rebranded themselves with a new blue and white striped football kit. They were big spenders who wanted to achieve immediate success by bringing in established Chinese internationals such as Cheng Yaodong, Jiang Jin and particularly Wu Chengying who set a Chinese transfer fee record of 13,000,000 RMB. This saw them become genuine title contenders and under their new manager Cheng Yaodong, they would fight for the league title with Shanghai Greenland Shenhua and only come second by a single point at the end of the 2003 season.^[4] On June 13, 2012 it was discovered by the police the real reason the team lost the 2003 title was because the club's players Shen Si, Qi Hong, Jiang Jin and Li Ming (1975) took a bribe from former Tianjin Teda general manager Yang Yifeng to lose their November 30, 2003 game, which saw all offending participants fined and jailed for their crimes.^[5]

The owners could not maintain the level of spending that they had done and the team's results would start to slip. Finding that they could not compete with Shanghai Shenhua and in the 2005 season, they had to face additional competition in Shanghai Zobon, the team decided to move to Xi'an after months of speculation. With the newly branded team known as Shanghai International, or Inter Shanghai by the fans, they would start to move away from the previous Yuanshen Stadium to the Shaanxi Province Stadium and renamed themselves Xi'an Chanba International by 2006 or Inter Xi'an by the fans. In 2007, their ownership was transferred to Baorong Investment and it was during this period that the club would start to experiment with a new yellow football kit. This would surprisingly seem to work when the club looked as if they were title contenders once more during the 2008 season, however their title hopes quickly faded and the team eventually finished fifth. The following season, however, would see the team languish near the bottom of the table and Cheng Yaodong decided to resign, which would see former Chinese national football coach Zhu Guanghu come in and guide the team away from the relegation zone.

At the beginning of the 2010 season, Dai Yongge and the Renhe Commercial Holdings Company would start to invest heavily within the club. This would see the club bring in Chinese internationals Sun Jihai, Zhao Xuri, Qu Bo and Mao Jianqing into the team. However, despite the signings, the club struggled within the league and Zhu Guanghu left the club while three time Chinese league winner Milorad Kosanović replaced him.^[6] Milorad Kosanović's reign at the club was unsuccessful and he was soon replaced by Slobodan Santrač. After a poor string of results, Slobodan Santrač was fired and former Chinese international manager Gao Hongbo came into the club while it languished in mid-table throughout much of the 2011 season.^[7] After another disappointing season, Dia Yongge would start to get frustrated at the team's lack of success and decided to take advantage of Guiyang's government promise of the recently developed Guiyang Olympic Centre for the club, and with Renhe Commercial Holdings Company having better business connections within Guiyang, the club decided that it would move the team, which has recently made them one of the best supported teams in China.^[8] The 2012 season saw Guizhou have a successful year, with the club achieving fourth place and gaining entry into its first AFC Champions League.

The team's success continued as they qualified for the 2014 AFC Champions League as well, but got knocked out in the group stage both times they qualified. Their top achievements in this period included winning the 2014 Chinese FA Super Cup and the 2013 Chinese FA Cup. In the 2015 season they were relegated to the League One, but the team managed to advance back to the Super League in 2018. In 2016 they moved from Guizhou to Beijing, becoming Beijing Renhe.

Ownership and naming history

Crest and colours

When the club originated their home colours would predominantly be blue until the club won promotion to the top tier and decided that they needed to differentiate themselves from their local rivals Shanghai Greenland Shenhua, who also play in blue.^[11] This saw them employ a blue and white stripe top at the beginning of the 2003 league season and a new crest design of a horse in front of a striped background which was directly inspired by Juventus F.C. own logo.^[12] When the club was bought out by Baorong Investments who moved the club to Xi'an they decided that the club should use a new yellow top by the beginning of the 2008 league season and a new crest of a wolf was employed.^[13] When the Renhe Commercial Holdings Company bought a majority within the club they wanted to try out a new all black kit during the 2011 league season, however this colour did not last very long and when the company decided to move the club to Guizhou the club decided they needed a new kit to signify this move and launched an all orange kit at the beginning of the 2012 league season.^[14][15]

Kit evolution

2002

2003–2007

2008–09

2010

2011

2012

2013-2016

Rivalries

When the club was founded in Shanghai they decided to take advantage of the 1994 Chinese football league professionalism reforms that allowed more than one club in each city. With Shanghai Shenhua already established within the city the potential for China's first top-flight city derby emerged. On 9 March 2002 the first top-flight city derby became a reality when they met in a league game, which saw the club win 2–0 away to Shenhua in front of a sold out Hongkou Football Stadium. Known as the Shanghai derby it would be the start of an intense but short rivalry between the two clubs, which reached its peak on the final day of the 2003 league season with both teams able to win the league title.^[16] Shenhua won their game while the club surprisingly lost theirs to relegation fighting club Tianjin Kangshifu. This saw critics dispute the title win and it was eventually discovered that both teams had players and officials match-fix games throughout the campaign.^[17] Shenhua would retrospectively lose their title while the club owners decided it was financially unviable to remain in Shanghai and relocated their team to Xi'an, which effectively ended the rivalry.

Current squad

First team

As of 1 March 2018 ^[18]

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 Xu Jiamin 2 DF Yu Bin 3 MF Liu Boyang 4 DF Luo Xin 5 DF Wan Houliang 6 DF Wang Qiang 7 FW Ayub Masika 8 MF Augusto Fernández 9 FW Han Peng 11 MF Zhu Baojie 12 GK Zhang Lie 13 FW Shi Liang 14 MF Wang Xuanhong 15 MF Chen Jie 16 MF Xiang Hantian 18 MF Sun Weizhe

No. Position Player 20 MF Cao Yongjing 21 FW Jin Hui 22 FW Wang Gang 23 DF Liu Yang 25 GK Li Chen 26 MF Zhang Yufeng 27 DF Liu Jian 28 MF Li Chenglong 29 MF Nizamdin Ependi 30 MF Feng Renliang 31 MF Rao Weihui 33 MF Wang Chu (on loan from Cova da Piedade) 38 FW Benjamin Moukandjo (on loan from Jiangsu Suning) 39 FW Makhete Diop 43 FW Shao Shuai

Reserve squad

As of 1 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 41 DF Ma Yangyang 42 DF Liu Xiangwei 44 GK Ci Henglong 45 MF Liu Xinyu 46 FW Lin Jinghao 47 MF Cheng Yetong 49 DF Ling Zeen 50 DF Chen Yong

No. Position Player 51 MF Zou Shuanglong 52 DF Shao Mingxuan 53 DF Li Muxuan 54 DF Chai Zhichao 55 MF Cui Yijie 56 GK Sheng Peng 57 MF Li Shisen

Out on loan

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

No. Position Player 19 MF Chen Liming (at Heilongjiang Lava Spring until 31 December 2018) 48 MF Zhang Hao (at Standard Liège until 30 June 2019) DF Xu Jiajun (at Yanbian Beiguo until 31 December 2018) FW Yang Yihu (at Heilongjiang Lava Spring until 31 December 2018) FW Fan Bojian (at Heilongjiang Lava Spring until 31 December 2018)

Coaching staff

Position	Staff
Manager	Luis García Plaza
Assistant coach	Qiu Zhiyin Li Chunman
Fitness Coach	Duško Tomaš

Honours

Results

All-time league rankings

As of the end of 2017 season.^[23][24]

Key