Hubris, infighting, and poor recruitment have all contributed to a season to forget for Kitchee. It has been a long time coming for the club, who will miss out on continental football for the first time since 2011.
After dominating the local league for the better part of the past 14 years, everything has come crashing down for Kitchee. The side rolled into their 1 May league meeting with rivals Eastern riding a 14-match unbeaten run in all competitions. They had not lost to Eastern in over three years and had beaten them months earlier in the Senior Shield final.
The Bluewaves were in contention for the three remaining competitions this season – until the losses piled up.
Kitchee were beaten on a late goal by Noah Baffoe, losing 2-1 in a game in which they never looked comfortable. They fell to Eastern a week and a half later by the same score, with Baffoe netting two more. Adding further insult to injury – and with further pressure mounting to turn things around – they came out flat three days later in the Sapling Cup final against Rangers, losing 1-0.
Over the space of a fortnight, it all fell apart for Kitchee, who would later finish the season with a loss to champions Lee Man – their first loss at home league match since 2019. To make matters worse, the Bluewaves will miss out on Asian football for the first time in 13 years.
In truth, the Bluewaves have been in decline for two years. Even when Kitchee won their 12th top flight title last season, their play on the pitch was unconvincing. Only through spectacular individual efforts and the weakness of their title rivals were they able to get over the finish line and win the league.
This season, things were different. The club who always found a way to win didn’t, and unlike the last time the Bluewaves failed to win the league, the squad look due for a major overhaul.
Kitchee’s squad did not suddenly turn old overnight. It is not a bug, but rather, it is a feature of the way that they have decided to recruit, preferring short-term solutions while mortgaging the future. For years, management at Kitchee have made a bet that despite their aging squad, no other team in Hong Kong would be strong enough to exploit this weakness.
But what happens when those older, experienced players underperform? What happens when those players miss months of the season due to injury? And what happens when those senior players are exactly the players who command the largest part of your wage bill?
The result is Kitchee’s 2023-24 season.
Eastern effectively ended Kitchee’s season with two victories against the Bluewaves (Credit: Inmediahk)
In 2020, Club president Ken Ng said of Kitchee’s philosophy: “We will never be the Asian Manchester United, Arsenal, or Manchester City but we can be the Asian Ajax and produce more players. We still want to win the league, but along the way, we will focus on developing our players.”
Only three years after he said those words, then-head coach, Alex Chu, took a different approach, declaring that he wanted two players at every position who were Champions League calibre.
On the surface, developing players from the academy while maintaining a squad that can be competitive are not mutually exclusive. In practice Kitchee may have emulated Ajax too well. Much like the Amsterdam club, they have the highest budget in the league without winning the league. Both clubs have eschewed their own youngsters in recent years in favour of signing in prime or over the hill players in a bid for short-term success.
Just in the past three years, Kitchee have signed Dejan Damjanović, Kim Shin-wook, Jakob Jantscher, Michalis Manias, Cleiton, Ruslan Mingazov, Igor Sartori and Juninho – all players who were 30 or over at time of signing. Although some of these signings have come good for the club, none of them reflect any long-term strategy for a club who claim to want to be the ‘Asian Ajax.’
In the Premier League this season, the club rank first in terms of minutes played by players 30 years old or over, with over 60 percent of minutes given to senior players.
(Source: Transfermarkt)
To his credit, Ng acknowledged that the average age of his squad – which was the oldest of all participating teams in the Champions League this season – needed to be lowered. But what matters more than recruitment decisions themselves is the person in charge of those decisions.
Chu admitted that ever since the signing of Diego Forlán in 2018, Ng would occasionally suggest possible big-name players to Chu that the club could target. This, too, is in line with the club’s lack of foresight and their penchant for signing one aging superstar to replace another aging superstar.
Damjanović’s production over 2.5 seasons justified his big-ticket salary, but as it became clear that he would depart the club after the 2022-23 season, Kitchee’s solution was to replace him with Kim – a decision that has produced the biggest flop in Hong Kong football history.
Since his arrival in February 2023, the former Korean international has played in just 13 matches, while finding the back of the net just five times. In contrast, Manias – who was also seen as a flop – scored four in six matches.
What happens next with Kim will be management’s biggest decision this summer. He admitted that he has struggled with knee injuries due to the frequency of training on artificial turf, though there are currently no plans to replace the surface at the Kitchee Centre with natural grass. The Korean’s contract runs until 2026 and the club reportedly owe him HK$17.25 million over the length of his deal.
Kim Shin-wook (Credit: HKHL)
While Damjanović’s contributions on the pitch are apparent for all to see, underneath the surface, his greatest achievement may have been that he kept the dressing room together.
It is no secret that Kitchee have had not been a united front this season, the truth is that the club have won trophies in the past in spite of – not in absence of – cliques in the dressing room. Broadly speaking, the Brazilian players form their own social group, while the non-Brazilians have their own. Within each camp, the players have smaller sub-groups, but the Brazilians have tended to have more public disagreements with each other.
According to those with knowledge of the situation inside the dressing room, Damjanović served a leader who kept all other players in line. He was not a peacemaker in this regard, but a general who suppressed all other egos within the squad.
With the Montengrin talisman gone, cliques in the dressing room have become fissures, and those fissures have manifested into infighting. Disputes on the training ground have spilled out onto the pitch on matchdays as frustration has mounted over a poor season.
Though Brazilians Cleiton and Mikael get on well, they often target non-Brazilians Sherzod Temirov and Poon Pui-hin with verbal barbs rather than passes. An example of this was during the 1 May league match versus Eastern where tempers flared between Cleiton and Temirov.
It is believed that both Cleiton and Mikael will leave the club, while Temirov’s future is unknown. Their departures will undoubtedly help to alleviate the air of toxicity within Kitchee’s dressing room.
Bluewaves midfielder Charlie Scott acknowledged as much, stating after the team were only able to arrest their three-match losing run in May due to players “encouraging each other, not arguing.”
Mikael (Credit: Kitchee)
Over the years, Kitchee have gained an infamous reputation as club who rely heavily on the use of naturalized players.
Let’s first evaluate this claim with data:
(Source: Transfermarkt)
Leaving aside the outlier of the shortened 2021-22 season, the percentage of minutes played by Kitchee’s naturalized players in league play has decreased slightly over the past 10 seasons. There are several factors for this phenomenon, including a decrease in the number of foreign players who have become naturalized, a decrease in the quality of these players, and an increase in the foreign quota which has lessened the need to use such players.
Criticism should not be levelled at Kitchee’s head coach – whether it be Alex Chu or Kim Dong-jin – for using naturalized players as the job of the coach is to win. Instead, criticism of their strategy of using naturalized players should come from two other directions.
First, as former Kitchee player Philip Chan has stated previously, “Kitchee are a good club, but there are certain things that can be handled better…especially towards (ethnic Chinese).” Assertions that the club treat non-Chinese players better than Chinese players is not new, and this has been corroborated to Offside by others.
Additionally, Offside have learned from sources that Kitchee begin negotiations over contract renewals as early as January. If the club deem that a player is not in their plans for the following season, or a contract agreement cannot be reached, the player in question will see their minutes decrease in the second half of the season – harming their opportunity to impress another employer.
The second criticism is that, in their attempt to corner the market for naturalized players, Kitchee have signed players who were not good fits for the team. Players such as Jordon Brown, Tomas Maronesi and, arguably, Juninho, never looked fully settled at the club.
This problem of poor squad construction extends to the rest of the squad as well. While Jantscher has proved his worth with four goals in the Champions League, Kim has struggled to find a consistent position for him in domestic play. The same goes for players such as Poon, Sartori and Juninho – neither of whom have looked comfortable at any position this season.
Square pegs in round holes – another story of Kitchee’s season.
Juninho (Credit: Kitchee)
Without Asian football on the horizon, Ng admitted that the squad would be refreshed and rebuilt with younger players. He later stated that decisions on players would be made after the Hong Kong Football Awards on the 28th, and a source confirmed to Offside that many players would meet with management earlier in the day to discuss their futures.
The source reiterated that the club had not begun negotiations with players, unlike in previous years.
Scott perhaps summed up the situation best after the season finale, saying, “I hope that (the club’s lack of communication) can be improved in the future as it’s not good for the players, especially foreigners like me. I need to know what my future is and whether I need to move back to England. It’s not ideal because you just want to focus on football. It’s the end of the season and you still don’t know about next season…this would never happen in Europe.”
The fan favourite also said that he would likely leave Hong Kong if he did not receive an offer from Kitchee, though he is not the only potential departure. As stated previously, Cleiton and Mikael are expected to leave shortly. Juninho is said to have received offers from abroad, even after a difficult season, and his future is unknown. Roberto, who began the season as an assistant coach only, is expected to return to the role.
A big decision needs to be made on the status of Kim Shin-wook. Though he has claimed that he is looking forward to getting back on the pitch, it is merely an attempt to put the onus on management to decide what to do with him. His contract runs until 2026, making it unlikely that he would agree to terminate it early without being paid the remainder of his deal upfront.
Another tough decision is that of the future of Mingazov. The 32-year-old Turkmen international saw his season derailed by injuries after winning Footballer of the Year in 2023. His winner against Eastern in the Senior Shield final reminded fans what Kitchee were missing without his quality. Mingazov’s situation is unique in that his contract expires in January 2025, and lingering questions remain about what his or the club’s intentions are.
What is known, however, is that longtime captain Huang Yang will retire, leaving a leadership void a dressing room already starved for leadership. Vice-captain Hélio, who is 38, and Fernando, who is 37, had said previously that they wished to remain, but are now said to be reconsidering their futures.
Ruslan Mingazov (Credit: Kitchee)
Most of the rumours regarding incomings have focused on defensive players as it is Kitchee’s greatest area of need. An intriguing name to keep an eye on is that of Jay Haddow, a former Kitchee academy player who joined Blackburn Rovers’ youth setup when he was 12. The right back, who is now 20, will become a free agent this summer.
Haddow’s family have remained close with Ng over the years, and Haddow himself was spotted at Kitchee’s penultimate match of the season against Southern. While it is premature to say whether a deal can be done, it is believed that there is mutual interest in a reunion at some point.
The coaching post is another area of concern for Kitchee, who started the season with Chu as head coach. He was replaced by his assistant Kim Dong-jin in late September after a poor start to the season. By the end of the season, it was another assistant, Edgar Cardoso, who had taken charge of training after Kitchee dropped their FA Cup semi.
Reports that Cardoso will take over as head coach on a permanent basis are premature as no decision has been made in this regard. Regardless of who takes over the helm, transfer decisions will continue to be made without the head coach’s input.
A bad season does not change the fact that Kitchee have greater financial resources than every other club in the Premier League. The club’s budget for this season was $24 million, a figure that will surely shrink due to the lack of Asian competition next season.
With a large budget, it is possible for the Bluewaves to do a quick rebuild and find themselves competition for silverware again next season. The club can easily attract the top local players in the league while surrounding them with quality foreigner players.
However, the concern will be whether patience will be allowed for a club who see themselves as the ‘Asian Ajax.’ There will always be a temptation for Kitchee to sign aging stars in a bid to return to the top quickly and justify the highest ticket prices in the league.
Whether impatience will come first from the fans or from management is an open question.
