Its insane. There are probably 10-15 holding midfielders in Bundesliga alone who are just as good or better than Paulinho, but the price tag on those similar skilled players wouldnt have been anymore than 6-8 million at the most. But Tottenham paid 20 millions for him, and though they had made a fantastic deal, but he was probably not worth even half that amount at that time. And now, after only starting 3 games last season, a Chinese team splash out 14 million. Tottenham are extremely lucky that they could get such a big transfer fee for him, and they are probably laughing all the way to the bank happy with how they managed to reduce their initial losses of 20 mill. Which sucks, cause Tottenham is one of the least likeable teams in England. The way Premier League teams do business, and now also Chinese teams is beyond me. Its ridiculous at best. Hope Reysol knock Evergrande out of the CL, and that Scolari loses his job, which would make Paulinho leave pretty fast as well.
As a non european club, you always need to overpay in order to attract these players. Given his profile, he should thrive in the CSL.
Yep, I was more concerned with Tottenham who payed 20 mill for him. But im not completely sold on him becoming a grand success in China. He´s no Conca, and look at how relatively "poor" (compared to his price tag etc) Diamanti were, and how other "stars" from Europe have done in other teams in China. Paulinho doesnt strike me as the kind of player who will stick around if things start to get tough either, and he got a very low bottom-level. But we will see. Looking at it different, it is good to see good players and managers choose Asia over Europe, but the whole Scolari/Paulinho set-up doesnt really seem to be that genuine.
hmmm he played a World Cup, he's very physical, he has abilities, I think you're seeing him as worse than he really is.
Yes, he thinks that because he played in Lithuania before becoming a NT player. Evergrande wants Robinho also. Evergrande signing Robinho would mean needing to move on (the admittedly injured) Alan. In my opinion that would be a backward step. #CSL— Christopher Atkins (@ChrisAtkins_) June 30, 2015
A random post but: A bit interesting to see the difference on the goalscoring charts between the 3 big leagues in East Asia. In Japan, 31 of the top 45 goalscorers and 8 out of the top 10 are Japanese. In Korea, 30 of the top 45 goalscorers and 5 out of the top 5 are Korean. In China, 9 of the top 45 goalscorers and just 1 out of the top 10 are Chinese.
Well, honestly it's understable. Even if in the first years of JLeague the situation wasn't "1 on 10" it was still skewed towards foreigners. Slowly, the number of chineses goalscorers will rise.
And vacuuming the Scandinavian leagues for foreign strikers. In the last 13-14 months around 10 foreign strikers have left Norway for China. And there are quite a lot from Sweden and Denmark too, including a couple of swedish players and managers. They pay well though, so I guess we cant complain, but it must be frustrating for Chinese strikers.
http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/fourfourtwos-50-best-football-managers-world-2015 Not a single Asian Manager on this list, unless you count Popovic and Postecoglou. Is that justified or is this just another example of a list made through "western eyes" ( the relative number of American and Australian managers seems a bit high...) ? Edit: Top 10 havent been published yet, but I guess its fair to believe we will not see any Asian Managers there=)
Hopefully Kashiwa can perform well against Guangzhou next week. They seem to be ticking well at the moment in the league.
Guangzhou is still quite a strong team. Kashiwa's defence needs to be sorted out and their players might be burned out as they don't really have a lot of depth in their squad. As for Gamba, I think they stand a good chance of winning their QF match.
Reysol was afraid of playing their usual football. Too pragmatic and some controversial decisions by Yoshida, he paid the price for that. Guangzhou was far from impressing, Kashiwa made it easier for them.
It was too far away, I understand not putting a wall. But any decent keeper should not concede from that distance...
Sugeno was at fault for letting the first two goals go in. And for the third he should have done much better.
I never thought Paulinho it's capable of something like this. But if there was Taye Taiwo, Hitzlsperger or Roberto Carlos you should put a wall. You remember Paulinho to score after a long range free kick? Me no, but I saw him only in the EPL.
This was more like an once in a lifetime goal. He used to score a lot for Corinthians, but from open play only.
Nobody thought Espen Ruud could do it either.... And although past his prime, Weidenfeller is still an above average goalkeeper. Nothing Sugeno could have done with that I think. but the first goal it almost looked like he deliberately didnt wanna save it.