In the broad strokes, it reads like a sequence in an overblown action film.
Our three heroes have just a few hours to make it from Brazil to China before the borders are closed. They charter a private jet, scramble to get their suitcases packed and cross their fingers. Cut — via a cheesy montage, naturally — to an eerily quiet Pudong International Airport, late on Friday night in Shanghai. The plane touches down. In the arrivals lounge, a man in a suit lets out a relieved sigh. His guys have made it, with just 11 minutes to spare.
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At which point you can stop visualising Steven Seagal at the baggage reclaim, because the passengers on that flight were footballers. One was ex-Chelsea midfielder Oscar. Hulk, formerly of Porto and Zenit Saint Petersburg, was another. They — along with the third player, Ricardo Lopes — are team-mates at Chinese Super League side Shanghai SIPG. Their trip was one of the more dramatic manifestations of football’s struggle to work around the coronavirus pandemic.
Last Thursday, after a spike in imported cases, the Chinese government announced that it would be shutting its borders to foreign nationals. That was likely an inconvenience to individual business travellers; to the clubs of the Chinese Super League, it was a headache.
There are 71 foreign players registered to Chinese teams. When the new rules were introduced, many were outside the country. They had little over 24 hours to decide — with their families, with their agents, with the clubs themselves — whether or not to make their way back.
Some acted swiftly. Hulk, Oscar and Lopes are now observing a 14-day quarantine in the team hotel, but they are there. It is still unclear when the 2020 season will begin — the scheduled start date of February 22 has long since passed — but the hope is that the players can return to something resembling normality in the weeks ahead. “It was a real rush,” one source tells The Athletic, “but it all worked out.”
Yet for plenty of others, uncertainty reigns. According to reports in the local press, 36 of the 71 foreign players were outside the country when the deadline passed. They include the former West Ham and Stoke City forward Marko Arnautovic, also of Shanghai SIPG, as well as ex-Tottenham midfielder Paulinho and Anderson Talisca, two key players for champions Guangzhou Evergrande.
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The travel ban is only temporary, but no one knows when it will end. Like footballers around the world, these players have to muddle on alone. Yet their frustration is sharpened by two factors. The first is that their careers have been on pause for four months, since the end of the 2019 campaign. The second is the knowledge that most of their team-mates have gone back to work. Chinese Super League clubs were able to resume training last week, which means pre-season is happening without them.
Alan Kardec, a former Benfica striker striker now at Chongqing Dangdai Lifan, is among those on the outside looking in. His agent, Marcos Casseb, says there is no indication when the Brazilian will be able to return to China, and admits that the length of the lay-off is a concern.
“Alan was all set to return before the new measures were announced,” Casseb tells The Athletic. “But then the club cancelled his travel plans. We thought that was the correct decision, given the number of cases had started to go up again. But we have no idea when he’ll be going back.
“He’s training every day, under instruction from the club, but obviously he wants to get back to training with his team-mates as soon as possible, not least because last season ended so long ago.”
Paulo Pitombeira, who represents Shandong Luneng Taishan forward Roger Guedes and former Brazil international Ricardo Goulart of Guangzhou Evergrande, echoes that point. “They’re desperate to play,” he says. “These are elite athletes, so they don’t want to be sat at home. They both have personal trainers, so they’re doing as much as they can, but they want to be out on the pitch. They want to compete.”
Pitombeira admits the travel ban came as a surprise to his clients, but Guedes in particular will understand the precautions being taken by the Chinese government and many clubs. His Shandong team-mate, Marouane Fellaini, tested positive for coronavirus when he arrived in China on March 22 and has been in quarantine since. It is precisely the kind of case that prompted the new lockdown, which is designed to reduce the number of imported infections.
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There had been tentative murmurs, before the Fellaini news, that the Chinese season may get under way in mid-April. Already that looks to have been pushed back until May at the earliest, with the travel ban — and the exile of half of the league’s foreign stars — unlikely to speed things up. For the footballers who didn’t go in for a last-minute dash over the Pacific Ocean, the only real option is to remain patient in the face of the flux.
“For now, they’re waiting,” says Pitombeira. “There’s nothing we can do. This is a challenge for everyone, and every footballer will be feeling the effect of it.
“We haven’t got the slightest idea what will happen next.”
(Top photo: Visual China Group via Getty Images)
