The Last Train to Chengdu: Memories of a Vietnamese Football Journalist Following Chinese Teams

The rain fell. Drops pattered against the canopy of Chengdu City Sports Stadium, where for thirty-nine years I have witnessed countless matches begin in the rain and end with stories not everyone has the patience to hear. Tonight is no exception. The stadium eerily silent — four thousand spectators in a venue that seats sixty thousand. They sat scattered in Section A, wind blowing through thin raincoats, and the referee's whistle still sounded on time, rain or shine. I stood in my usual spot — the corner of the stands opposite the bench — and realized that this season is shaping a story I have never written in three decades of the profession. The story of a team learning to survive, and of people learning to wait. Chengdu Rongcheng — a name I have been attached to since its founding in 2026 — is entering its most difficult phase since reaching the professional ranks. The points table does not lie: twelfth place after fifteen rounds, just five points above the relegation zone. But what interests me is not that number — it is how the team responds to that pressure. In the dressing room after last week's match against Shanghai Shenhua, I heard laughter. Not mocking or delusional laughter, but the laughter of people who just went through something difficult together and survived to tell the tale. Li Ming — the young man I have followed since he was a nineteen-year-old trembling boy tying his shoelaces three times before stepping onto the pitch — is now twenty-eight, wearing the captain's armband and much quieter than before. He did not laugh with his teammates. He just sat there, rolling the ball mechanically on the dressing room floor, as if searching for a pulse that was lost. Tactical data does not lie, but it also does not tell the whole truth. Chengdu Rongcheng controlled the ball fifty-three percent in the match against Shenhua, with an xG of 1.7 — higher than the season average — but still lost one goal due to a defensive error in the seventy-fourth minute. That goal came from a counter-attack, when the young twenty-two-year-old right-back Chen Hung was caught too far up the pitch after pressing too eagerly. That mistake was not a lack of skill; it was a lack of experience handling pressure in decisive moments. But what I noticed — what not everyone has the opportunity to see — was the dressing room's reaction after the goal. The head coach did not shout. He simply stood up, walked to the bench, and said something I could not hear clearly but could guess: "Keep playing." The team kept playing. They created three dangerous chances in the remaining twenty minutes, but no goal. One point, not three, but still a point. The core problem I have been tracking for months lies in the midfield area. Li Ming, despite being known for his finishing ability as a striker, has had to drop deeper to support playmaking due to the absence of a quality central midfielder. The transfer fee for a quality foreign midfielder — according to sources I verified through three independent channels — ranges from five hundred thousand to one million euros per season, a sum that Chengdu Rongcheng's management is considering very carefully in the context of drastically declining broadcasting revenue. This is not their problem alone; it is a general trend in Chinese football post-pandemic, when clubs have been forced to tighten spending and pivot toward domestic youth development. But that transition is painful, and I have witnessed it firsthand: in the trembling eyes of young players stepping onto a professional pitch for the first time, in the sighs of coaches looking at the standings, and in the silence of the dressing room when no one claps after training. The silent contract — a phrase I use to describe deals negotiated quietly, without official announcements or social media rumors — is becoming a trend in Chinese football. Instead of grand unveilings, clubs now prioritize discretion to avoid public pressure when deals fall through. Last week, a source close to Rongcheng's management told me about negotiations with a Brazilian midfielder — not Marcos Silva, who left in 2026, but a younger player, just twenty-five, currently playing for a second-tier team in the national championship. The information is still being verified, and I have long imposed upon myself the rule of "five verifications, two times thinking for the player" — a principle many colleagues consider overly cautious, but I know that one wrong article can destroy a young player's career. The contrarian angle — the blind spot I always seek — lies in this: most current analyses focus on numbers like PPDA (passes allowed per defensive action), xG, or possession percentage. But I have learned that those numbers are merely the surface. What truly matters — what I can only see when standing outside the dressing room, waiting for the door to open — is how players breathe, how they look at each other when no one is speaking, how a team functions as a living organism rather than a collection of statistics. The match against Shanghai Shenhua ended one-nil, but what I remember most was not the goal or the loss. It was the halftime moment when Li Ming stood alone by the touchline, looking toward Section A — where perhaps no one he knew was sitting — and waved. No one waved back. But he waved anyway. The dressing room door only opens when you dare to wait in the rain. That phrase — which I wrote in my notebook during the summer of 2026, when the second-division team I was following dissolved after a devastating loss — now carries a different meaning. Chengdu Rongcheng is not dissolving. They are still playing, still surviving, even if their league position might make many doubt their future. The question is: is that survival enough to retain their best players, or will they seek new destinations when contracts expire? Li Ming — who scored fifteen goals in a season that once thrilled continental football fans — has still not signed a renewal. Negotiations are ongoing, according to sources whose identities I cannot reveal, and I know he is weighing many things: money, opportunities to compete in continental tournaments, and the sense of belonging to a place he has called home for six years. Three hundred days without applause — the pandemic period when stadiums froze — taught me a lesson I carry to this day: football is not just ninety minutes on the pitch. It is moments of waiting, half-spoken conversations in hallways, brief messages sent at midnight when someone needs to be heard. In 2026, when Marcos Silva injured his ligaments and his family could not fly in, I was the one who took him to follow-up appointments, interpreted for him, and waited at bus stops on empty afternoons. I did not write about that — and will never write about it — until he scored again in June 2026. Only then did I write, but still without revealing what I had silently done. Some stories can only be told when they are ripe, and some people only get recognized when they no longer need that recognition. Returning to the present: tonight's match against Dalian Pro is entering the sixty-seventh minute. The score remains goalless, but the intensity has noticeably increased. The visitors are pressing higher, the home team — Chengdu Rongcheng — have shifted to quick counter-attacks through both flanks. Li Ming is moving off the ball in a way only those who have followed him for ten years would recognize: he is not running toward the ball, but toward space, always positioning himself where opponents least expect. That is the instinct of a seasoned striker, not a technique learned in the gym or training ground. In the seventy-third minute, a long pass from the left-back — the ball sailing over two Dalian defenders — and Li Ming appeared at the right moment, with speed no longer as fast as his early days but still enough to beat the goalkeeper. The keeper dove, the ball went into the far corner, and Section A — with four thousand people — erupted in cheers that I could not hear because I was covering my mouth, trying to contain my emotions. A goal. Three points. A thrilling match. But what I was thinking about was not the league position or survival chances. I thought about Li Ming, who had just scored and did not celebrate — he just turned back, looked at his teammates, and nodded once. That was the gesture of a captain, of someone who knows that one goal does not change everything, but it changes enough to make tonight different. I write about the ball, but I keep the rhythm with the hearts of the people who kick it. And tonight, that heart was beating faster than usual, for a reason I cannot put into words but can feel through rain-soaked skin and the sound of applause rising from Section A. After the match, I stood in the parking lot as always, waiting for the team to leave. It was still raining, but lighter than before. A team bus started its engine, headlights cutting through the mist, and I saw Li Ming's silhouette sitting in the front row, headphones on one ear, phone in the other hand. He was talking to someone. I do not know who, but I know — from thirty-nine years of experience — that it could be a club representative, it could be family, and it could also be a complete stranger he just wanted to hear a voice from at midnight. Football, at this level, is not just a game. It is life in miniature, full of hope, disappointment, waiting, and memory. Tomorrow, when Chinese sports newspapers publish the match result with the headline "Chengdu Rongcheng Scrape Win to Stay Up," they will talk about the goal, the three points, the new eleventh-place position on the table. But I — journalist of the forgotten things — will write about something else. I will write about the sound of cleats on the dressing room hallway at midnight, about the smile of the trembling nineteen-year-old tying his shoelaces, about those who left and those who stayed. I will write about Chengdu autumn, about rain that cannot wash away memories, about the last train before the station closes. And I will sign my name at the end, as I have signed it for thirty-nine years, with the belief that: the heartbeat of football never stops, only those who listen to it stop counting.