oscar will leave chinese football: what he misses most is the sense of security he feels when living in china
2024-09-13
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china daily, september 12 (reporter sun xiaochen, intern ge xuan) recently, oscar, a player of shanghai haigang, was interviewed by the brazilian newspaper folha de são paulo in shanghai. his contract with shanghai sipg will expire at the end of the year, and due to salary restrictions, the possibility of renewal is very small. after living in china for eight years, he is considering returning to brazil or europe. in the interview, he talked about his career experience and life in china.
"i love shanghai but it's too far from home for us to stay here forever," said oscar, 32, a former sao paulo, inter milan and chelsea player, in an interview at his apartment in pudong new area on the banks of the huangpu river. "my mother is getting old, my sisters are having children and we want to be closer to home."
oscar, a star player in the chinese super league, led the shanghai harbor team to the championship last year. the team still leads the standings this year. he was one of the last batch of foreign players signed under the old rules, when there were no salary restrictions. according to british media reports, he left chelsea in london to join shanghai at the time and received the third highest player salary in the world - forbes estimated his annual salary at us$25 million (about rmb 141 million) in 2020.
at present, clubs in brazil, europe and qatar have extended olive branches to oscar. oscar will make his decision about the future at the end of this year's chinese super league season. "my wife and i are very anxious to know where we will go. we have been here for seven or eight years. this is a big change. the sooner we know, the better."
the shanghai sipg club has offered him a position in the club's management after his retirement, although he believes retirement is still a long way off. "i like this club very much and i have helped with other things here. when the current contract ends, i will continue to stay in touch with the club, which may be a plan for the future."
oscar was disappointed with the performance of the chinese national team recently. in the asian qualifiers, china just lost to japan 0:7. oscar commented: "the players performed well in their respective clubs, but they seemed to be unable to cooperate in the national team." therefore, he supported china's decision to invest in youth training at the beginning of this year. "i have been here for so many years, and i have hardly seen any young people perform exceptionally well. china has some very good players, but they are all older. our team's no. 7 player wu lei is the top scorer in the chinese super league. he is very capable. but in the national team, everyone expects him to do everything. his responsibility should be to score goals, but he does not perform well."
during his eight years in china, oscar was impressed by the growing enthusiasm of chinese super league fans. "the games are exciting, and the fans of some teams are particularly enthusiastic, such as beijing guoan, which has 40,000 to 50,000 fans watching every game. the same is true for our home stadium, which is new and very beautiful."
the part that oscar misses most about leaving his life in china is the sense of security. "no matter where i go, it will never be like here, and there is no way to change that," oscar said. "the quality of life in china is unique in the world, and i have never seen anything like it in europe."
oscar has a 10-year-old daughter, an 8-year-old son and a 18-year-old son, all of whom speak mandarin. "my children take the bus to school every day, it's very safe. we can go out at 2 or 3 in the morning and go anywhere, nothing will happen. there are no drugs here, it's like another world, only those who have lived here can understand it."
source: china daily
