(Photo/Shanghai Daily)
Five players from Shanghai SIPG made it into Marcello Lippi's 25-member squad for a World Cup qualifier against Qatar on November 15.
The Italian, who was roped in as China's national team manager only last month, has also put faith in his former team--calling up seven players from Guangzhou Evergrande.
The squad will gather in Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province, from tomorrow.
Wu Lei, Yu Hai, Cai Huikang, Fu Huan and goalkeeper Yan Junling are the SIPG players. Midfielder Cao Yunding was the only player from Greenland Shenhua to be called up.
SIPG defender Fu made it to the national side for the first time. Fu, who plays on the right, was in the Chinese Olympic team. The 23-year-old Shanghainese is a product of local coach Xu Genbao's academy. A club official said Fu was excited about becoming a member of the national team.
Lippi, who coached Evergrande from 2012 to 2014, and led the club to its first ever Asian title in 2013, named Zheng Zhi, Gao Lin, Feng Xiaoting, Zhang Linpeng, Huang Bowen, Li Xuepeng and Mei Fang in the squad.
Evergrande won its sixth successive Chinese Super League title last Sunday.
The veteran Italian coach signed a three-year contract last month and became the best-paid manager in the world with a reported annual salary of 20 million euros ($21.8 million).
Lippi's former colleague in Evergrande, Li Tie, has been named assistant coach. A former Everton player, Li was with Evergrande from 2012 to 2015. His appointment was a bit of a surprise--but also speaks volumes about Lippi's influence--after Li had criticized a national team official at a press conference when he was the head coach of Hebei China Fortune.
He was promptly replaced by former Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini in August.
"I cherish every single opportunity to work for the national team. Thank Hebei China Fortune for its support. I'm always a member of it." Li wrote on his Weibo account yesterday.
Beijing Guo'an has four players in Lippi's squad and Shandong Luneng three. The rest of the squad come from Jiangsu Suning, Guangzhou R&F and Tianjin Teda.
Striker Zhang Yuning, who plays for Vitesse in the Netherlands, has also been called up.
China is at the bottom of the group with just one point from four qualifying matches. Its chances of making it to the 2018 World Cup in Russia looks very slim. Lippi said earlier that the Chinese team need to fix its mentality and gain self-confidence, and his priority was to psychologically evaluate his players.
