1) Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao
By far, the leading team in the country has been Guangzhou Evergrande. Evergrande are the reigning five-time winners of the Chinese Super League, a streak which began in 2011 and shows no signs of stopping.
The club was playing in the second tier as recently as 2010 after they were relegated because of match fixing. The transformation began when Evergrande Real Estate Group purchased the club in 2010 and pumped money into the squad which saw them win promotion immediately in the 2010 season.
The club got rechristened from Guangzhou Football Club to Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao Football Club in 2014.
It won its two continental titles in 2013 and 2015, the only Chinese club to do so. In December 2015, the team advanced to the semi-finals of the FIFA World Club Championship where they lost to eventual winners Barcelona. They had to settle for the fourth spot after getting beaten by Japanese club Sanfrecce Hiroshima in the third-fourth playoff.
Multiple players of international repute have played for Evergrande over the years. Some of them are Muriqui, Cléo, Elkeson (all Brazil), Argentinean Dario Conca and Lucas Barrios of Paraguay, who was signed from the then German champions Borussia Dortmund.
The current international quartet of international stars at Guangzhou Evergrande are Alan Carvalho, Ricardo Goulart, Paulinho (all Brazilian) and Jackson Martínez (Colombia) who have kept them in the 2nd position in the 2016 CSL.
The team is managed by World Cup winning coach Luiz Felipe Scolari and is part owned by Alibaba founder Jack Ma. Another World Cup winning coach Marcelo Lippi managed the team from 2012 to 2014.
Their home stadium is the Tianhe Stadium in the Guangdong province and has a seating capacity of 58,500. Evergrande’s games are the most widely attended (with an average of 42000+).
