At the beginning of 2025, Beijing Guoan has been receiving good news continuously. Spanish coach Quique Setien has officially joined, and new signing Serginho has also arrived in Beijing. After completing his club medical examination, he will fly to Haikou with Setien's coaching team to participate in the second phase of Guoan's winter training.
After securing Serginho, the current focus of Guoan Club's work is on the introduction of domestic players. It is reported that the main positions for recruitment this season are at the full-back and central midfield positions. The main full-backs of Guoan, Li Lei and Wang Gang, have both entered the final stages of their careers and urgently need young players to step up.
Last season, Feng Boxuan and He Yupeng both played as full-backs, but their overall performance was average. Coach Suarez even used Yang Liyu and Fang Hao as makeshift full-backs, indicating that there is currently no full-back player in the Guoan team who can truly replace Li Lei and Wang Gang. Therefore, during this winter transfer window, Guoan will continue to introduce full-back players.
In central midfield, naturalized player Li Ke has left the team, and his new destination is likely to be Chengdu Rongcheng, a rising star in the Chinese Super League (CSL). Rongcheng Club has recently made significant moves in recruitment, with confirmed signings including Liu Dianzuo, Han Pengfei, Liao Lisheng, and Yuan Mincheng among others.
With the addition of Liao Lisheng and Li Ke, Chengdu Rongcheng's central midfield position is now overcrowded. Yan Dinghao, who only joined the team last season, finds himself in an increasingly awkward position within the squad. According to some domestic media reports, Yan Dinghao is very likely to leave Chengdu Rongcheng this winter.
The 26-year-old Yan Dinghao comes from the Hangzhou Greentown youth training system and won the runner-up in the men's football A group of the 13th National Games with the Zhejiang U20 youth team. In the summer of 2016, Yan Dinghao transferred from Zhejiang Greentown to Portuguese powerhouse FC Porto, representing the team in the Portuguese National Youth First Division. He has also played for several Portuguese teams such as Salgueiros and Arouca.
In the 2019 season, Yan Dinghao returned to the CSL, joining Guangzhou Evergrande (Guangzhou Team) at the peak of its success and quickly becoming a key rotational player. In his first season with Evergrande, Yan Dinghao won the CSL championship with the team and contributed 4 goals and 2 assists in 15 games.
However, due to serious financial issues with the club's parent company, Guangzhou Team began to crumble, with many naturalized players and national team members leaving the team. Yan Dinghao also transferred to Wuhan Three Towns in the 2023 season. Unexpectedly, Wuhan Three Towns soon followed in Guangzhou's footsteps, losing shareholder funding support and struggling in the league. In this situation, Yan Dinghao transferred to Chengdu Rongcheng last season.
Therefore, it is very likely that he will transfer away from the team in January this year. According to the latest news, Yan Dinghao's new destination is likely to be Beijing Guoan, which is currently looking for central midfielders. Born in 1998, Yan Dinghao is in the prime of his career and can be plugged in and used immediately, which is what Guoan values most. Additionally, Li Ming, the general manager of Guoan Club, once coached Yan Dinghao when he was the head coach of the 97 National Youth Team, making it more likely for Yan to join Guoan.
In the new season, Guoan will compete in three fronts: the CSL, AFC Champions League, and FA Cup, urgently needing to strengthen the team lineup. If Yan Dinghao can join, it will improve Guoan's defensive and organizational capabilities in midfield and increase the depth of the player rotation lineup. Here, we also hope that Guoan can successfully sign Yan Dinghao and make adequate preparations for the 2025 league season.