WHO ARE YA?! WHO ARE YA?! Tianjin Quanjian

With everything still to play for in their group, Kitchee face up against Tianjin Quanjian on Wednesday knowing that 3 points would leave them with a good chance of qualifying for the knock out stages. Can they do it?! 

Kitchee's opponents are Tianjin Quanjian - a team that has only been in existence for 12 years but has moved cities, changed name three times, played at six different home stadiums and swapped kit colours on multiple occasions . The question "Who Are Ya?!" is perhaps never more appropriate! 

Hothot Binhai - Tianjian Songjiang - Tianjian Quanjian? Eh?!

Tianjin Quanjian are a professional football club who qualified for the ACL by finishing third in the Chinese Super League last season and beating Philippines side Ceres in the qualifying match.  Now home to world international stars such as Pato, Alex Witael and Anthony Modeste, the team from Tianjin have not always been such a force to be reckoned with - in fact, they haven't even always been from Tianjin!

Quanjian were only formed in the summer of 2006 and originally based in Hohhot, in the Mongolian area of northern China. At that time they were known as Hohot Binhai and played their games in the Hothot People's Stadium in the third tier of Chinese Football.  

In 2008, the club moved moved to Tianjin and were renamed Tianjin Songjiang. Still playing games in the Chinese Division 3, the team's home matches were held at the Hedong Sports Centre, which has a relatively modest capacity (for Chinese standards anyway) of just 12,000 people. 

In 2011, the team were promoted to the second tier of Chinese football and they moved to the Tianjin Olympic Stadium and then Tianjin Tuanbo football stadium. 

The team established themselves as a stable fixture in Chinese League 1 but it wasn't until it was purchased by Quanjian Nature Medicine, a Chinese herbal medicine company, in July 2015 that they started growing from strength to strength. The takeover wasn't without its controversy, however, as Quanjian had previously sponsored Tianjin Teda - the traditional Tianjin team - and only terminated their ownership of Teda in June 2015 after a public dispute regarding control over player transfers.

When Quanjian completed the acquisition of the team, they changed the club's colours to light blue, moved stadium once again, and installed a new club badge.  Who are ya?! indeed! 

Under the management of Fabio Cannavaro,Quanjian won promotion to the CSL in 2017, following a season in which they only conceded 27 goals in 30 league matches.  In their first season in the CSL, Quanjian finished third thanks to a final day victory with an impressive 54 points, conceding just 33 goals across the campaign.  The team now play in Red and are managed by Italian Paulo Sousa, following the department of Cannavaro to Guangzhou Evergrande at the end of the season. 

Where do they play? 

Quanjian  now play their league matches at Haihe Educational Football Stadium, a multi-purpose venue in Tianjin which opened in 2011.  The ground has a capacity of 30,000, with the pitch located in the centre of a full-size running track.

However, for ACL fixtures they will play at the 60,000-seater Tianjin Olympic Center Stadium - usually the home to Tianjin Teda. 

Who plays for them? 

The current squad is largely made up of Chinese players, except for four overseas signings who include former Chelsea and Brazil star Pato, South Korean international Kwon Kyung-won, French striker Anthony Modeste along with highly-rated Belgian Alex Witsel. 

Modeste's height and strength was a constant thorn in Kitchee's side in the first game, scoring twice and missing a handful of other chances in the 3-0 victory. He really caused Recio and Bong a headache all game. 

Despite failing to breach the Bluewave's backline, Pato has already scored 5 goals this season, including 3 in the ACl against Jeonbuk and Reysol. He made the headlines following the win against Jeonbuk for publicly declaring his love for Chinese actress Dilraba Dilmurat - which then lead to fans bombarding the poor girl on twitter and demanding that she return their hero's advances. Not exactly the behaviour of a premier league footballer, but perhaps the behaviour of a once-great, semi permanently-injured Brazilian. 

Those four come at a combined cost of around £70m and with Witsel reportedly earning £275,000 a week whilst in Tianjin it certainly puts Kitchee's "big money signing" of Diego Forlan into perspective from a football point of view. 

Notable Chinese national team players include Sun Ke, midfielder Zhao Xuri, defender Liu Yiming and Wang Yongpo.

How are they doing in the league?

Not great would be the answer! 

Despite beating Henan in their first match, Quanjian have then gone on to lose their following three fixtures including embarrassing defeats to local rivals Tianjin TEDA and Beijing RenHe and now find themselves at the wrong end of the CSL table. They faced up against Evergrande at home on Friday night and ran out 1-0 losers despite the fact that HengDa had to play nearly half the game with 10 men.  Quanjian played that game with pretty much a full strength line-up, other than Pato, 


Can Kitchee win?! 

From speaking to the players after training yesterday, confidence is high after the 1-0 win against Kashiwa and there is a real belief that they can upset the odds and claim another 3 points against Quanjian. 

However, it won't be easy. The loss of Helio is a massive blow to team but the return of Dani Cancela should mean that the line up is a little less experimental than in the previous fixture where Recio really struggled.  Huang Yang is back from injury and played a full match against Dreams at the weekend so should be available to shore up the midfield. 

The team struggled in their opening 2 matches in the ACL, seemingly unable to adapt to the different pressures of the continental tournament. However, they've really acquitted themselves better in the following 2 matches and should seem to have found their rhythm. Playing at their "true home" of Mong Kok stadium in front of a sell out crowd should also give the team a huge boost.

Our hearts say that we can do it but honestly ABS thinks that the best we can probably hope for is a 1-1 draw. Let's hope that we are wrong and that another moment of magic means that we are all celebrating a second historic win on Wednesday evening!