The closest we'll see Davi in a Guoan shirt, one way or another, all the blame falls to Gao Chao...
There are a lot of Chinese Super League oddities that take a long time to get used to, one in particular is the transfer window. Unlike in Europe where news of a friend of a transfer target’s brother attending a certain team’s match is enough to make headlines, in China the news is thin at best. If it’s a Chinese target we’re talking about, some news will slip out, but when it’s a foreign player, nobody hears about it until he’s actually signed.
Guoan’s number 10 shirt has been a curse over the years, whoever’s worn it has either ended up injured or struggling through the season. Four of Guoan’s number 10’s failed to reach double digit match numbers and none have scored more than 6 goals in a season. Having played 103 games, they’ve combined for an embarassing grand total of 19 goals.
This season, the shirt was given to Davi, Guoan’s final foreign import, who joined the club just before the start of the season. Despite having passed his fitness test, he’s been suffering from acute inflammation and has returned to his native Brazil. It looks like the curse continues and Davi won’t ever appear in a Guoan kit. The club’s already seriously looking into options when the transfer window reopens in June.
Davi’s stats looked good on paper, but that’s where they’ll remain. In the meantime, Guoan’s a man down until the transfer window reopens. Chinese Super League clubs take a lot of risks with foreign players and few prove their worth over the course of a season. Guoan’s failure to seriously examine their signing is going to cost them and while the club leadership is deservedly getting torched by the fans, the media has (not surprisingly) completely given them a pass.
