Hangzhou Greentown F.C.

Hangzhou Greentown
Hángzhōu Lǜchéng
杭州绿城

Full name	Hangzhou Greentown FC 杭州绿城房产足球俱乐部
Nickname(s)	Greentown 绿城 Green Giants 绿巨人
Founded	14 January 1998 (1998-01-14)
Ground	Hangzhou Huanglong Stadium
Ground Capacity	52,672
Chairman	Song Weiping
Manager	Hong Myung-bo
League	Chinese Super League
2015	Super League, 11th
Website	Club home page
Home colours Away colours

Hangzhou Greentown Football Club (simplified Chinese: 杭州绿城; traditional Chinese: 杭州綠城; pinyin: Hángzhōu Lǜchéng) is a professional Chinese football club that currently participates in the Chinese Super League division (top tier) under licence from the Chinese Football Association (CFA). The team is based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang and their home stadium is the Hangzhou Huanglong Stadium that has a seating capacity of 52,672. The club's main investor is the Zhejiang-based Greentown China Holdings Limited company, which is owned by real estate tycoon Song Weiping.

The club was founded on January 14, 1998 and they made their debut in the third tier of China's football league pyramid in the 1999 league season. On November 23, 2000 the club bought the first team of Jilin Aodong as well as their position in the second division for 25 million Yuan. They have subsequently won promotion to the top tier after finishing runners-up in the 2006 league season and the highest position they have ever finished is fourth in the 2010 Chinese Super League season.

History

Zhejiang Greentown Football Club Co., Ltd. was officially established on January 14, 1998 with a capital of 16,000,000 Yuan and Zeng Leming was appointed as their general manager. Greentown Real Estate Company, Hangzhou Qiantang Real Estate Company, Zhejiang University and Zhejiang Provincial Football Association all participated in the creation as well as the registration of the club.^[1] The company would go on to form a youth team before finally creating a senior team on January 22, 1999 to take part in the third tier with Bao Yingfu as their first head coach. They wouldn't wait long to show their ambition when they would make the play-offs in 2000 before losing to Tianjin Lifei.^[2] Still determined to win promotion the club decided to buy the first team of Jilin Aodong as well as their position in Chinese Football Association Jia League on November 23, 2000 for 25,000,000 Yuan, in time for the beginning of the 2001 league season. Under the new general manager Shen Qiang the club brought in new sponsors and Gu Mingchang as the new Head coach, however during this period the club couldn't win promotion to the top tier and the Chairman Song Weiping expressed his disappointment of the team. Song Weiping would soon discover that the reason for his clubs disappointing results when it was discovered that several of his players and coaches were taking bribes, with a 6–0 defeat against Changchun Yatai in the 2001 league season being highlighted, which saw the offending participants banned for a year while the club had three months to reform and re-apply for a CFA playing license.^[3] This would see the club would go through several management changes as well as a significant ownership shift, which saw Song Weiping's company Greentown China Holdings Limited take a 96% share of the team for 20,000,000 Yuan in 2005 while Zhejiang University held on to 4%.^[1]

Under Wang Zheng as their Head coach the team would start to generally push for promotion, eventually achieving it at the end of the 2006 league season when they came second in the division.^[4] The club often found themselves fighting off relegation and would bring in several managers to alleviate the problem, however this wasn't enough during the 2009 league season and the club found themselves in the relegation zone at the end of the season. Surprisingly the club were allowed to stay within the 2010 Chinese Super League after it was discovered that Chengdu Blades and Guangzhou FC were guilty of match-fixing.^[5] After gaining a reprieve from relegation the club went on a spending spree by signing several established Chinese internationals such as Du Wei, Li Yan and Wang Song.^[6] The signings seemed to work and the clubs results significantly improved throughout the 2010 league campaign, which saw the club achieve their best ever finish of fourth and a chance to play within the AFC Champions League for the first time.^[7]

Name history

• 2002 Renamed to Zhejiang Greentown (浙江绿城)
• 2003 Renamed to Zhejiang Sanhua Greentown (浙江三花绿城)
• 2004 Renamed to Zhejiang Greentown (浙江绿城)
• 2006 Renamed to Zhejiang Bebei Greentown (浙江巴贝绿城房产)
• 2007 Renamed to Zhejiang Greentown (浙江绿城房产)
• 2009 Renamed to Hangzhou Greentown (杭州绿城)
• 2010 Renamed to Hangzhou Nabel Greentown (杭州诺贝尔绿城)
• 2011 Renamed to Hangzhou Greentown (杭州绿城)
• 2012 Renamed to Hangzhou 9Top Greentown (杭州九好绿城)
• 2013 Renamed to Hangzhou Daikin Greentown (杭州大金绿城)
• 2014 Renamed to Hangzhou Greentown (杭州绿城)

Current squad

As of 5 March 2015 ^[8]

First team

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

No. Position Player 2 DF Wang Xiao 3 DF Ge Zhen 4 MF Zang Yifeng 6 MF Zhuang Jiajie 7 FW Imed Louati 8 MF Ruan Yang 9 FW Anselmo Ramon 10 FW Davy Claude Angan 12 MF Luo Jing 14 MF Feng Gang 15 MF Cheng Jin 17 MF Chen Po-liang 18 DF Zhao Yuhao 19 FW Dong Yu 21 MF Yi Baidi 23 GK Zou Dehai

No. Position Player 24 MF Zhao Xiaotian 25 MF Huang Xiyang 27 GK Huang Yuandong 28 DF Cao Haiqing 29 MF Yue Xin 32 DF Wu Wei 33 MF Chen Zhongliu 34 DF Matthew Spiranovic 42 GK Liu Chang 43 MF Wu Wei - DF Oh Beom-seok - GK Zhang Lei - GK Yu Yongzhe - FW Tan Yang - DF Cheng Mouyi

Reserve squad

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

No. Position Player 36 FW Song Haiwang 37 MF Shen Jin 38 DF Zhao Yuan 39 MF Wei Zhaokun 40 DF Shi Tangxian 41 MF Han Lieguang 44 DF Liu Jing 45 MF Liu Yi 47 DF Wen Junjie 48 FW Gao Huaze 49 DF Tong Lei 50 DF Xu Jizu

No. Position Player 51 DF Xie Deshun 52 MF Wang Dongsheng 54 DF Niu Xiuchen 57 DF Liang Qingjie 58 MF Zuo Wei 59 MF Wu Qingsong - GK Fan Jinming - DF Chen Xiaohan - MF Wang Zhipeng - MF Liu Heng - FW Zhang Xiang

Out on loan

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

Coaching staff

As of 5 January 2016 ^[9]

Position	Staff
Head coach	Hong Myung-bo
Assistant coach	Takeshi Ono Wang Jun Gao Sheng Cho Kwang-soo
Goalkeeping coach	Zdravko Zdravkov
Fitness coach	Bruno Inarra
U-17 team coach	Yasuharu Kurata
U-14 team coach	Masahiro Kobe
Translator	Tang Mingming Yu Feng
Team physician	Ye Weinian Kim Kwang-jae Hwang In-woo

Managerial history

As of End of 2015 Chinese league season^[10][11]

Honours

League

• China League One: 2006 (Runners-up)^[12]

Youth Team

U-15 Team

• Nike Cup Winners: 2008

Results

All-time League rankings

As of the end of 2014 season.^[13][14]

• ^1 In group stages. ^2 Buy the first team of Jilin Aodong as well as their position in second tier. ^3 Two Super League clubs were involved in match-fixing scandal and relegated to League One, so Hangzhou could stay at top level.

Key

China top division   China second division   China third division W   Winners RU   Runners-up 3   Third place   Relegated

Pld = Played W = Games won D = Games drawn L = Games lost F = Goals for A = Goals against Pts = Points Pos = Final position

DNQ = Did Not Qualify DNE = Did Not Enter NH = Not Held - = Does Not Exist R1 = Round 1 R2 = Round 2 R3 = Round 3 R4 = Round 4

F = Final SF = Semi-finals QF = Quarter-finals R16 = Round of 16 Group = Group stage GS2 = Second Group stage QR1 = First Qualifying Round QR2 = Second Qualifying Round QR3 = Third Qualifying Round

International friendlies

• On 26 July 2009, Manchester United visited the Dragon Stadium and played a friendly against Hangzhou Greentown as part of their pre-season Asian tour.^[15] Manchester United won by 8 goals to 2.
• On 16 July 2011, Arsenal visited the Meihu Stadium and played a friendly against Hangzhou Greentown as part of their pre-season Asian tour.^[16] The game was drawn 1–1.

AFC competition records

Opponent	Season	Home	Away
Nagoya Grampus	2011 AFC Champions League Group stage	2–0	0–1
FC Seoul	2011 AFC Champions League Group stage	1–1	0–3
Al Ain FC	2011 AFC Champions League Group stage	0–0	0–1

See also

• Yanbian FC
• Hangzhou Sanchao
• Great Wall Cup - China's largest international youth football tournament

References

1. 1 2 "绿城介绍". GreenTown Football Club Inc. Retrieved 23 May 2012. 
2. ↑ "China League Tables 2000". rsssf.com. 19 Jun 2003. Retrieved 23 May 2012. 
3. ↑ "China League Tables 2001". rsssf.com. 19 Jun 2003. Retrieved 23 May 2012. 
4. ↑ "China League Tables 2006". rsssf.com. 8 Mar 2007. Retrieved 23 May 2012. 
5. ↑ "天上掉馅饼重庆力帆偷着乐 狂喜之外更感到自身差距". sports.sina.com.cn. 24 Feb 2010. Retrieved 23 May 2012. 
6. ↑ "陕西队长李彦加盟杭州 五大国字号有望齐聚绿城". sports.sohu.com. 11 Feb 2010. Retrieved 24 May 2012. 
7. ↑ "China League Tables 2010". rsssf.com. 10 Dec 2010. Retrieved 24 May 2012. 
8. ↑ 2015年杭州绿城足球俱乐部中超联赛比赛名单
9. ↑
10. ↑ "Hangzhou Greentown » Manager history". worldfootball.net. Retrieved 2015-05-02. 
11. ↑ "Hangzhou Greentown". footballzz.co.uk. Retrieved 2015-05-02. 
12. ↑ "CHINA LEAGUE ONE - 2006". uk.soccerway.com. Retrieved 2015-11-09. 
13. ↑ "China League History". rsssf.com. 22 Oct 2009. Retrieved 28 January 2014. 
14. ↑ "杭州绿城". sodasoccer.com. Retrieved 28 January 2014. 
15. ↑ "China friendly announced". Manutd.com. Retrieved 24 May 2012. 
16. ↑ "Arsenal announces pre-season game in China". Arsenal.com. 25 May 2011. Retrieved 24 May 2012. 

External links

• Club website

Hangzhou Greentown F.C. About History Players All pages Stadium Yellow Dragon Sports Center

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