At the end of January, Dynamo will play in Abu Dhabi with two Chinese teams as part of the BetBoom Dynamo Global Challenge international tournament. In our article we recall meetings with representatives of the second most populous country in the world in the XXI century.
No Chinese players have yet played for Dynamo, but famous players from the blue-and-whites have traveled to China on numerous occasions late in their careers. In the early 2000s, after his spell in Germany, Sergei Kiriakov left for China to finish his professional career, ending his career there in 2003 with Shandong Luneng, then managed by Valeri Nepomnyashchiy. A year earlier, the same team had also been Eric Yakhimovich's last.
As the Chinese league gained momentum and became more attractive to foreigners, Dynamo's foreign players began to move there directly from Russia. In January 2013, Zvezdan Misimovic transferred to Guizhou Renhe, with whom he won the Chinese Cup and Chinese Super Cup, before retiring there four years later. In 2020, Toni Šunić followed a similar path, spending three and a half years with Henan Songshan Longmen.
Their first encounter with Chinese football players took place in March 2013, when the White-Blues' youth team played BIT, a team founded by the Beijing Institute of Technology, during a training camp in Antalya. A penalty by Dmitry Otstavnov couldn't save Dynamo from a 2-1 defeat.
A year later, during a winter training camp, the main team faced another Moscow club in a friendly. The match against Chinese Championship bronze medalist Beijing Guoan was the third in a series of winter friendlies in Abu Dhabi – the first two, against Danish Brøndby and Uzbek Bunyodkor, ended in draws (1-1 and 0-0). Dynamo, without Anton Shunin and Kevin Kuranyi due to injury, took to the field for the first half with the following lineup: Frolov, Rotenberg, Fernandez, Wilkshire, Lomich, Zobnin, Kasayev, Florescu, Ionov, Yakhubi, and Dyadyun.
The blue-and-whites established their advantage from the outset and created a number of good scoring opportunities. Alan Kasayev, in particular, missed several scoring opportunities. In the only dangerous moment near our goal, Evgeniy Frolov made a brilliant come-out and cleared the ball for a corner.
After the break, the following players appeared: Gabulov, Zhivoglyadov, Samba, Granat, Zhirkov, Denisov, Noboa, Katrich, Yusupov, Dzsudzsak, and Kokorin. Despite the strengthened lineup, Dynamo played a rather average 45 minutes, with Aleksandr Kokorin standing out. He finally managed to score after a corner kick at the very end, but the referee disallowed the goal after protests from his opponent. The result was another 0-0 draw.
The winter of 2015 also featured matches against Chinese teams. This time, our youth team left Hunan Billows with no chance. In the first half, Mikhail Mogulkin's brace and Maxim Kuzmin's goal made the score even bigger. After the break, Igor Leshchuk, who played 60 minutes that day, missed a penalty, after which Nikolai Obolsky set the final score – 4:1!
The most recent match between Dynamo and a Chinese team took place in Khimki in the summer of 2018. Dynamo's youth team was then visited by their peers from Evergrande Guangzhou. Mikhail Ageyev's missed penalty didn't faze the hosts, and subsequent goals from Denisov and Alekseyev secured a shutout victory for Dynamo's youth team.
In recent years, Dynamo and China have been closely linked by partnerships: in 2023, Changan became our club's official automotive partner, and a year later, Dreame Technology, a leader in innovative technologies, followed in its footsteps.
This summer, Changan invited Dynamo's leader Konstantin Tyukavin and his wife, Alena, to Chongqing, one of the world's largest cities, where they spent several days experiencing Chinese culture, seeing the city's sights, and visiting our partner's flagship plant. Very soon, Kostya will be able to use the words and expressions he's learned in friendly games with his Chinese friends.
We're looking forward to it!