Football
Michael Church, Asia correspondent 7y

Homegrown Korean players better than Chinese - Dejan Damjanovic

Former Beijing Guoan striker Dejan Damjanovic has backed clubs from South Korea to outperform their Chinese counterparts in the Asian Champions League (ACL) this season because "seven Korean players are better than seven Chinese players."

Chinese Super League (CSL) clubs have made global headlines by paying significant sums for high profile foreign talent this year, but the former Montenegro forward believes the attitude of Korean clubs to foreign talent and the quality of the local players gives K League sides the edge.

"I think the Koreans, especially, they have a different opinion about foreigners," the 35-year-old FC Seoul forward told ESPN FC. "If a foreigner is playing well they will never change him, if they don't have any kind of reason to change him. That means he can adapt in the league and the system of the team and he likes Korea and they keep him.

"For a foreign player it's very important to stay with one team for a few years and adapt to the team, especially in Korean teams. In China that's the biggest problem. If you play well or not, if you score 30 or 10 goals you're going to be changed. Their kind of thinking is different. I'm not judging, but when you have a foreign player in the team for a few years for sure he's going to perform better than in the first year.

"And secondly I always think that seven Korean players are better than seven Chinese players, with all due respect to Chinese players because I know a lot of good Chinese players in the teams in China. But I think seven Korean players are better than seven Chinese players."

Damjanovic spent two years in the CSL, leaving FC Seoul after six seasons at the end of 2013 to join Jiangsu Sainty before spending 18 months with Beijing Guoan ahead of a return to the South Korean capital at the start of last season.

In his first season back in Korea he helped FC Seoul win the Korean title, the club's first since 2012, when Damjanovic finished as the league's leading scorer.

"It's not enough that they are buying foreign players," he said of Chinese clubs. "You have only three foreign players and one Asian player, but you need to improve the others and that has to be the main goal for the Chinese league, and I say that from the bottom of my heart to help them.

"You cannot buy players who can dribble past seven players. That's impossible, except maybe for [Lionel] Messi. Others cannot do this. For them it's good for the league and for TV rights and for full stadiums. It's really nice to play there with a good atmosphere, but that's not enough to make a result."

As a result, Damjanovic is backing six-time CSL champions Guangzhou Evergrande to continue their dominance of the country's domestic scene for the foreseeable future.

"Shanghai [SIPG] might have the better foreign players, or Jiangsu, but Guangzhou have the best Chinese players and that's why they are champions," he says. "They make the difference.

"Plus, I like to see they have extended the contract of Paulinho, they have kept Alan and Ricardo Goulart and Luiz Felipe Scolari's system. They are showing respect to these foreigners and I'm sure they will perform even better this year. They are not changing, changing, changing.

"The foreign players in China think: 'I'll be here one year and they'll send me out,' but this allows them to understand the culture and the city and they're going to perform even better.

"These kind of things I like and Guangzhou's system is the best in China and, for sure, they are going to have better results in the future and I don't know who's going to take the championship away from them in the next five or six years."

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