Wu Lei

Leo_Messi said:

The easy exposure to it might explain it then.

I would have thought that La Liga as a league and Spain as a country would be more exotic for the average Chinese. Not sure if that is the case in Japan and South Korea as I remember from my visits (albeit rather short) to those countries that us and RM and players from both clubs where rather exposed in terms of publicity. I have also noticed a lot of East Asian football fans on social media being interested/showing interest in Spanish football. I also remember our and RM's tours to the Far East in front of sold out crowds ages ago.

Not sure what the situation is in regards to the Bundesliga in Japan and South Korea so can't comment on that. Other than Bayern I can't imagine there being many fans of other German clubs. Maybe Dortmund due to Kagawa?

I guess if Spanish club focus more on Chinese players this perception will quickly change. At least it should.

BTW I would have thought (maybe that is my ignorance) that Chinese would look at Germany somewhat negatively due to events in WW2 and their close alliance with Japan. I guess that this is not the case. Probably the state communism ideology (or what is left of it) that is attributed to our "lovely" Jewish German friend (Karl Max) probably had a more positive impact.

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Yeah, you are not wrong at all, make no mistake, Real Madrid and us are HUGELY popular among Chinese football fans. I think if you measure the sheer size of football fans we and Real Madrid, along with Manchester United and Bayern are probably the top 3 or 4 in China. Yes we draw a lot of crowds in China, you will see that again this summer when our team visits China and Japan. And my understanding is (correct me if I am wrong), we are the No.1 foreign club in Japan in terms of the number of fans and followers.

Yes we have a lot of BVB fans here as well as Bayern fans, and fans of Schalke, Gladbach. I am a supporter of TSV 1860.

It is just that overall as a league the exposure of La Liga has not been on par with the other leagues. The fact that not many people speak Spanish is a factor (Spanish is far behind English, French and German in terms of number of speakers and learners in China as I recall) and La Liga so far have done a relatively poorer job marketing the league to China compared to the EPL and Bundesliga. I was first very happy to see that many Ronaldo fans stopped watching Real Madrid games after he joined Juventus, later I was like, damn, this is bad news for La Liga and we will be adversely affected too.

I don't know, as far as I can remember we have always romanticized and fanticized Germany (not Nazi Germany though). Perhaps because of the historical achievements of the Germans in science and their meticulousness and discipline etc.. I don't know. Actually prior to the outbreak of WWII, many Germans served as military advisors for the Chinese Nationalist/KMT government. John Rabe, a Schindler figure to us, was a Nazi party member who saved many Chinese civilians from the onslaught of the invading Japanese troops in Nanjing/Nanking and there is actually a statue for him standing there today.

Luftstalag14 said:

Yeah, you are not wrong at all, make no mistake, Real Madrid and us are HUGELY popular among Chinese football fans. I think if you measure the sheer size of football fans we and Real Madrid, along with Manchester United and Bayern are probably the top 3 or 4 in China. Yes we draw a lot of crowds in China, you will see that again this summer when our team visits China and Japan. And my understanding is (correct me if I am wrong), we are the No.1 foreign club in Japan in terms of the number of fans and followers.

Yes we have a lot of BVB fans here as well as Bayern fans, and fans of Schalke, Gladbach. I am a supporter of TSV 1860.

It is just that overall as a league the exposure of La Liga has not been on par with the other leagues. The fact that not many people speak Spanish is a factor (Spanish is far behind English, French and German in terms of number of speakers and learners in China as I recall) and La Liga so far have done a relatively poorer job marketing the league to China compared to the EPL and Bundesliga. I was first very happy to see that many Ronaldo fans stopped watching Real Madrid games after he joined Juventus, later I was like, damn, this is bad news for La Liga and we will be adversely affected too.

I don't know, as far as I can remember we have always romanticized and fanticized Germany (not Nazi Germany though). Perhaps because of the historical achievements of the Germans in science and their meticulousness and discipline etc.. I don't know. Actually prior to the outbreak of WWII, many Germans served as military advisors for the Chinese Nationalist/KMT government. John Rabe, a Schindler figure to us, was a Nazi party member who saved many Chinese civilians from the onslaught of the invading Japanese troops in Nanjing/Nanking and there is actually a statue for him standing there today.

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Schalke and Gladbach? That's some surprise.

That is strange given the fact that Spanish is a many times more widely spoken language than German which is only natively spoken in Germany, Switzerland (rather small country and not everyone speaks German there), Austria, a tiny principality like Liechtenstein, tiny part of Belgium and tiny part of Luxembourg. Correct me if I am wrong but China has not really focused much on enhancing political and economic ties with the Spanish-speaking world (Latin America) either despite that being a huge market. Probably due to the great geographic distance and the fact that there has been little exposure throughout history. I think that Spain and China first came into contact with each other after the Spanish colonization of the Philippines. Sino-Roman relations are much older although Spain was an important if not a key part of the Roman Empire in its heyday.

I think that people like Tebas and others are doing a much better job of marketing Spanish football aggressively abroad. There is a very well-known commercial running right now of a Chinese boy (I think so) speaking highly about La Liga in English.


I think that given the likely future exposure (more than currently) and more Chinese/East Asian players going to Spain and the league being viewable again for the national broadcaster, as you wrote, the league as a whole will gain much more popularity and probably easily surpass Bundesliga and who knows, the EPL as well one day?

Interesting. It was just the logical conclusion to make for me. Maybe that was indeed the case for the older generation who remember the Japanese onslaught and their alliance with Germany. I guess the same thing could be said about Mussolini's Italy and I doubt that Italy is looked at unfavorable given the huge amounts of Chinese tourists. Same goes for Spain although Franco was rightfully (IMO) neutral.

Thanks for the interesting info and hopefully my questions did not bother you. I was just curious.

Anyway it will be interesting to see Lei in action and hopefully his arrival will help more Chinese football fans make themselves more familiar with Spanish football. I very much welcome this.

Leo_Messi said:

Schalke and Gladbach? That's some surprise.

That is strange given the fact that Spanish is a many times more widely spoken language than German which is only natively spoken in Germany, Switzerland (rather small country and not everyone speaks German there), Austria, a tiny principality like Liechtenstein, tiny part of Belgium and tiny part of Luxembourg. Correct me if I am wrong but China has not really focused much on enhancing political and economic ties with the Spanish-speaking world (Latin America) either despite that being a huge market. Probably due to the great geographic distance and the fact that there has been little exposure throughout history. I think that Spain and China first came to contact after the Spanish colonization of the Philippines. Sino-Roman relations are much older although Spain was a important if not key part of the Roman Empire in its heyday.

I think that people like Tebas and others are doing a much better job of marketing Spanish football aggressively abroad. There is a very well-known commercial running right now of a Chinese boy (I think so) speaking highly about La Liga in English.

I think that given the likely future exposure (more than currently) and more Chinese/East Asian players going to Spain and the league being viewable again for the national broadcaster, as you wrote, the league as a whole will gain much more popularity and probably easily surpass Bundesliga and who knows, the EPL as well one day?

Interesting. It was just the logical conclusion to make for me. Maybe that was indeed the case for the older generation who remember the Japanese onslaught and their alliance with Germany. I guess the same thing could be said about Mussolini's Italy and I doubt that Italy is looked at unfavorable given the huge amounts of Chinese tourists. Same goes for Spain although Franco was rightfully (IMO) neutral.

Thanks for the interesting info and hopefully my questions did not bother you. I was just curious.

Anyway it will be interesting to see Lei in action and hopefully his arrival will help more Chinese football fans make themselves more familiar with Spanish football. I very much welcome this.

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No problem at all.

I think as long as we and Real Madrid continue to be competitive (among the top 5 clubs in Europe etc.) we will continue to draw people. However La Liga simply can't take our current popularity for granted and they need to try broadening the appeal and exploring new markets. From how Tebas is actively courting Messi to wanting to move a La Liga game to the US, I can see how hard he is trying, which I applaud. Yes I hope they keep trying as La Liga does have a lot of competition. Like I said, we (Barca) will only benefit if the La Liga pie is bigger and we will suffer if it is smaller.

Even the older generation of Chinese have no ill feelings for the Germans, after all they didn't do anything to China other than allying with Japan. Yeah we grew up with the indoctrination that Nazi Germany was evil etc. and we all know that, but that didn't stop us from romanticizing them, haha. Italy is seen along with France as the most "cultural" of Europe.

I was just thinking about this the other day, if more Chinese tourists come to Barcelona to see Wu Lei, they are bound to visit our ground and watch a game of ours so we might benefit from the Wu Lei effect too, haha. I am all about FC Barcelona raking in more money.

A really decent outing today. Came on to sub off an injured Piatti and was constantly causing problems for Rayo's defense, especially in the second half and created the penalty.

Not bad at all in his 2nd game after a short cameo last week. Keep working hard.

I saw that over 40 mil people in China watched his debut (the match before). Wow.

Joan said:

I saw that over 40 mil people in China watched his debut (the match before). Wow.

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Not surprised. I was actually thinking more than that since pretty much all football fans tuned in (and it helped a great deal that that game was at 7:00 pm local time here). After all Bayern believe them alone have 90 million fans in China.

Starts for Espanyol today.

First Chinese player to start a La Liga game.

Meh. Didn't have that many touches as he was playing more of a CF than a LW in this game, roaming in and out of the penalty's box for the most part and didn't get much service at all. Later in the first half he dropped deeper and had a few nice build-up passes with his teammates but led to nothing.

He should have stuck to the LW position like he did in the game against Rayo and relying on his speed and ability to dribble to get inside the penalty box to create some opportunities.

Overall a meh game for him, a bit too static for me.

Luftstalag14 said:

Meh. Didn't have that many touches as he was playing more of a CF than a LW in this game, roaming in and out of the penalty's box for the most part and didn't get much service at all. Later in the first half he dropped deeper and had a few nice build-up passes with his teammates but led to nothing.

He should have stuck to the LW position like he did in the game against Rayo and relying on his speed and ability to dribble to get inside the penalty box to create some opportunities.

Overall a meh game for him, a bit too static for me.

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I watched the game and felt a bit sorry for him. Espanyol clearly went there to take a point. Very rigid, and defensive - it wasn't pretty but it paid off for them.


Wu Lei's game was obviously sacrificed but he did still look good with his one-touch passing.

Wu Lei scored his first Liga goal today.

EdmondDantes said:

Wu Lei scored his first Liga goal today.

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Very happy for him.

I actually thought he played much better against Huesca last week, but I'd definitely take a goal.

More than 25 million people watched yesterday's game by the way.

Luftstalag14 said:

Very happy for him.

I actually thought he played much better against Huesca last week, but I'd definitely take a goal.

More than 25 million people watched yesterday's game by the way.

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It was a good one too. Excellent movement off the ball, control and finish. I feel as though more people should be watching him. He belongs at this level - it's a shame he's not playing for a more prominent side though.


P.s. I watched Shanghai SIPG yesterday and they did very well.


How do you reckon Wenjun Lü will play the Wu Lei role this season? He's improved a lot over the past year or so.

(Assuming you follow the CSL)

EdmondDantes said:

It was a good one too. Excellent movement off the ball, control and finish. I feel as though more people should be watching him. He belongs at this level - it's a shame he's not playing for a more prominent side though.


P.s. I watched Shanghai SIPG yesterday and they did very well.


How do you reckon Wenjun Lü will play the Wu Lei role this season? He's improved a lot over the past year or so.

(Assuming you follow the CSL)

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Honestly I don't follow the CSL at all, just checking the scores and standings from time to time to see how my hometown team, Beijing Guoan is doing.

Luftstalag14 said:

Honestly I don't follow the CSL at all, just checking the scores and standings from time to time to see how my hometown team, Beijing Guoan is doing.

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I see. Have you ever attended a game? What are ticket prices like?

EdmondDantes said:

I see. Have you ever attended a game? What are ticket prices like?

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Yes, the last game I attended was in 2002. Never bothered to go in person since.

Different clubs charge different amounts for tickets but overall tickets are pretty cheap, I think the most expensive ones are about 200 - 250 RMB ($30 - $37 USD) for an individual ticket. Beijing Guoan's season tickets cost only about $120 to $200 USD.