Zhu Jun, the controversial owner of Shanghai Shenhua, made his club an international laughing stock last night after naming himself in the starting XI against Liverpool in the Port of Rotterdam tournament. The millionaire (who isn't exactly the fittest of athletes) let vanity get the better of him and forced Uruguayan team manager Osvaldo Gimenez to play him upfront from the start. Wearing the number 16 jersey, Zhu puffed his way around the Liverpool defence,......

Xiamen Lions travel north tonight to take on Shanghai Shenhua with the home side hoping to put their Asian Champions League woes behind them and get back to the mini-run of form they have enjoyed of late in the CSL. Seasoned observers of Chinese football have been left scratching their heads at at the somewhat schizophrenic character of the two-time Chinese champions this season. The much publicised merger of Shenhua and Shanghai United has created......

Off-pitch goings-on again overshadowed play as Shanghai Shenhua notched up their second win of the season, in a fine 3-1 victory against Wuhan. Returning favourite Saul Martinez scored a well-taken effort on his second debut for the club, along with a brace from Uruguayan Sergio Blanco, but the relationship between the fans and the Shenhua boardroom reached a new low during this April Fools Day fixture. Not content with firing cult figure Wu Jinggui, boss......

Honduran striker Saul Martinez, hero of Shanghai Shenhua's 2003 championship-winning side, has made a surprise return to his old club and should feature in tonight's clash against Wuhan at Yuanshen Stadium. The 31-year-old was something of a crowd favourite during his last spell with the club and from 2002-2005 scored a healthy 36 goals in 86 appearances before leaving for J-League side Omiya Ardija, bemoaning the state of Chinese football as one of his reasons......

Shanghai Shenhua finally got their season underway with their first victory of 2007 — against none other than last year's runaway CSL champions, Shandong Luneng Sunday afternoon. Following opening day disappointment against Beijing, and a defeat to Sydney FC in the Asian Champions League, the Shanghai side battled to a 1-0 win at Yuanshen Stadium. It was a huge game for Shenhua and a near-capacity crowd basked in the Pudong sunshine. A relatively large away......

Shanghai Shenhua's troubled start to their 2007 campaign continued Wednesday night at Yuanshen Stadium in Pudong after they slipped to a 2-1 defeat to A-League side Sydney FC in the Asian Champions League. Yesterday, an Australian newspaper wrote complete and utter bullshit about Shenhua being called "The Shanghai Thugs" because one, yes, just one, of their squad was involved in the Chinese Olympic Team fracas against QPR a few weeks ago. And who exactly did......

Yesterday, for the first time since China launched it's professional football league in 1994, Beijing Guoan beat Shanghai Shenhua on their own turf. The capital outfit beat Shenhua 2-0 at Yuanshen Stadium in Pudong, but the historic first was over-shadowed somewhat by the furious reception reserved for new Shenhua owner, online gaming tycoon Zhu Jun. He masterminded an RMB 150 million merger between Shenhua and rivals Shanghai United just a few weeks before the season......

Batton down the hatches — a rumpus is brewing over plans to change Shanghai Shenhua's trademark blue playing strips to red — the colour of the team who bought them out last week, local rivals Shanghai United. Shenhua, the city's premier footballing outfit and China's "glamour club", have seen a number of other Shanghai teams come and go since their establishment 13 years ago at the dawn of the launch of the country's first professional......

Cross the Shanghai derby from your local sporting calendar this year — the chief participants, Shenhua FC and Shanghai United FC, are to “merge”, according to an official statement from the former team’s website. The news comes, as tends to be the case in Chinese football, as something of a shock — the start of the 2007 season is just weeks away and fixture lists have already been published. According to several news reports, colourful......

Shanghai Shenhua bid farewell to Hongkou Stadium until the 2008 season with a hard-fought 1-1 draw against their old foes, Dalian Shide, yesterday afternoon. Normally this game is a title decider between China's two preeminent domestic footballing powers. But on a hot October afternoon both teams were just playing for pride after Shandong Luneng steamrollered their way to their second-ever CSL title at the end of August. The game was not a patch on the......

OK, so it's a bit difficult to type like Elmer Fudd, but you can always find inspiration by trying Google in Elmer Fudd language. But back to the news: The World Tribune informs us that: China’s Communist Party has ordered media outlets to tone down reporting on the financial scandal that led to the dismissal of Shanghai Communist Party leader Chen Liangyu. The scandal is expected to implicate other senior Communist Party officials, including possibly......

Derby fever strikes the city once again tonight when Shanghai Shenhua cross the Huangpu to take on Pudong’s Shanghai United in the CSL, with both teams looking to get one over their local rivals to make up for disappointing seasons so far. Excitement and hype ran high last time the sides met back in March, with all sorts of lurid allegations about United’s colourful tycoon owner Zhu Jun taking huge briefcases of money into the......

Shanghai Shenhua's stuttering season in China's top-level professional football league, the CSL, has taken a major twist after the club announced it signed former Bayern Munich, FC Cologne, Hansa Rostock, Udinese and Rapid Vienna forward, Carsten Jancker. The giant German with a shaved head, who played for his country 33 times and appeared at the last World Cup, will be sure to cut a striking figure after he is set loose on defences up and......

More than 30,000 fans crammed into Hongkou Stadium on Thursday night to witness the Shanghai football derby, but went home disappointed after a dull 0-0 draw. (So dull we didn't get around to writing about it until today.) Pre match shenanigans between the teams had piqued the public's interest in the clash between Shenhua FC and Shanghai Liancheng Zobon (or Shanghai United, according to their club badge). The Pudong side accused Shenhua of gamesmanship, according......

Shanghai Daily tells us that some cinemas will maintain their half-price ticket Tuesdays, while others are selling full price tickets on the money-spinning love-based day. "I think their approach is understandable," said Wu Hehu, deputy manager of Shanghai United Cinema Lines, the city's biggest cinema chain. even though we're already very rich, we want to suck money from pressured youths like the RMB-obsessed vultures that we are "No one wants to miss Valentine's Day's huge......

"Beijing or bust!" That's been the Summer Break 2005 mantra for foreign soccer clubs. Manchester United plays there today. Sheffield United played there last week. And just a few days ago, a Beckham-less Real Madrid squad sloshed its way to a 3-2 win over Beijing Hyundai. Depending on who you read, Beijing's 70,000-seat Workers' Stadium was either less than half full or just barely half full for that match, but everybody reports that Real Madrid......