On Friday, January 23, 2026, Abu Dhabi will host a match of the BetBoom Dynamo Global Challenge friendly tournament between Dynamo Moscow and Chinese Shanghai Shenhua.
When is the start and where to watch
The text broadcast of the game will be available online in our match center.
You can watch the live video broadcast of this game on the website of the Match TV channel. The meeting starts at 17:30.
Also on our resources there will be a traditional edition of "Inside" with the highlights of the game.
As part of the BetBoom Dynamo Global Challenge tournament, Dynamo will play with two Chinese top teams - Shanghai Shenhua and Chengdu Rongchen. The winner of the tournament, which will be determined by the sum of two matches, will be Russia or China.
Team status
Dynamo has been training twice a day in the UAE for over a week, and on Sunday they had three sessions. For now, Rolan Gusev and his new coaching staff, which includes his assistants Yuri Zhirkov and Roman Sharonov, and fitness coach Agustin Quihillaborda and assistant Juan Francisco Gomez, cannot count on a number of players.
Arthur is training at almost full capacity, and along with Bakhtiyor Zaynutdinov, they should be fully prepared for the second training camp. Luis Chavez is finishing his recovery from cruciate ligament surgery, and we are unlikely to see him in the friendly matches during the training camp, as is Dmitry Alexandrov, who is expected to return by the summer. Danil Glebov and El-Mehdi Maouhoub, who fell ill at the start of the training camp, are also currently working on individual programs.
On Wednesday, however, the team welcomed two new additions: new head physician Mikhail Butovsky, who previously spent eight years with the Russian national team, and Brazilian center back David Ricardo, who signed a contract until 2030 with an option for another season. Read more about the first winter signing in our article.
About the opponent
Shanghai Shenhua achieved professional status in December 1993 and became one of 12 clubs to play in the inaugural season of the fully professional Jia-A League the following year. Since then, the Shanghai club has never been relegated from the top division – a feat only Beijing Guoan and Shandong Taishan can boast.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, the "Shanghai Flower" consistently dominated the league, winning the championship in 1995, finishing second eight times, taking bronze twice, and winning the Chinese Cup and three Chinese Super Cups. The club lost another championship in 2003 10 years later following a high-profile investigation into corruption and match-fixing in Chinese football.
The Shanghai club can easily be called the most "Russian": in the 1990s, six Russian footballers passed through its ranks, including former Dynamo Moscow goalkeeper Valery Kleymenov, and in 2004-05, it was coached by Valery Nepomnyashchy, who led it to a championship silverware.
In the 2010s, the team mostly languished in the middle of the table and could boast of only three cups. A new surge in fortunes came with the arrival of Leonid Slutsky in 2024, assisted by Oleg Veretennikov and Oleg Yarovinsky. Under his leadership, the team fought for gold for two consecutive seasons until the final round against Shanghai Port, but both times fell just short. However, in the Super Cup, both times, the Russian coach's team emerged victorious against their archrivals.
Shanghai Shenhua once boasted stars such as Nicolas Anelka, Didier Drogba, Carlos Tevez, and Stephan El Shaarawy. Current foreign players include French defensive midfielder Ibrahim Amadou, former Portugal midfielder João Teixeira, former England youth defensive midfielder Nicholas Yennaris, and Brazilian Saulo Mineiro, who played alongside David Ricardo for two seasons at Ceará. Slutsky may also test new signings: Brazilian winger Raphaël Ratao and Senegalese forward Makhtar Gueye.
