Wu Lei scores, Shanghai derby carnage and yet more rule confusion: The Chinese Football Podcast s3e10

The 2019 CSL season is finally off the mark, with all of last season’s title contenders avoiding some potential banana-skin openers – we look back on easy wins for last year’s top two and some tight victories for Shandong and Guoan. We discuss the demise of the Shanghai derby as a competitive fixture and a promising start for some key new signings ahead of the first round of Champions League fixtures.

There’s time for a pod discussion on the media hype surrounding Wu Lei’s first goal in Spain – is the media and fan obsession unhealthy and patronizing, or an understandable source of pride? As ever, the answer isn’t black and white for the panel.

There’s a great undercover fanzine name which comes up in the Phenomenon of the Week discussion before we switch gears to explain and lament the CFA’s latest rule-switching confusion around newly-naturalized players and wrap up by looking forward to another tasty weekend of fixtures and the start of the continental campaign.

Host Steve Crooks is joined by Chinese football experts Cameron Wilson in Shanghai and Brandon Chemers in Beijing for this week’s episode.

If you enjoy listening to the pod and appreciate the considerable time and effort which goes into producing each episode, please consider supporting us financially via Patreon.

You can also subscribe on Patreon, and on itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or various other platforms. You can also download the pod to your device.

We are also very pleased to be hosted and broadcast on Football Nation Radio.

Don’t miss the chance to get involved in the discussion on Twitter at #chinafootypod – we love hearing feedback and do our best to field your questions and suggested topics every week.