Talking Balls: Man City Vs. Arsenal In Beijing This Summer & Some Sports Shorts

Manchester City and Arsenal will be playing in the Bird's Nest on July 27. That's the same night as the Olympics opening ceremony so it's a super day for Beijingers who like sport. There were rumours that Manchester United would be playing Juventus in the city this summer but Beijing reds will have to console themselves with a trip to Shanghai (July 25) or Guangzhou (July 28) to see Old Trafford's finest. I think it's a shame that Danny Welbeck won't be in town but will cope with a visit from Mario Balotelli. Thank goodness that it's not at Chinese New Year or Beijing's five star hotels would be in trouble. Get tickets here when they come out.

The Citizens and Gunners have taken the game seriously, as a marketing exercise if not as a competitive football match, and have each produced a video to entice Chinese fans. See them both in English with Chinese subs (subtitles not unused players bought more for commercial than football reasons) below.

Now for some other sports stuff. Brought to you as links and bulletpoints so you can breeze through it and get on to the business of Bacardi Breezers.

Last week, Nicolas Anelka was made Shanghai's player-assistant manager but told everyone via twitter that he was "player-manager." This week Jean Tigana was sacked as manager. This tells us two things. One, Shenhua are in trouble. Two, the CSL thinks player-managers are still viable and not a series of mid-'90s PC games

Shenhua's internet gaming boss, Zhu Jun, has hinted that he would sell the club on his Weibo. This is no surprise based on the current managerial merry-go-round.

Italian coaching don, Marcello Lippi has been linked with taking over at Guangzhou Loadsamoney, sorry, Guanzhou Evergrande. China Sports Review has this piece on the dark happenings at the club.

NiuBBall's CSL end of season review is here.

The Beijing Ducks were fined RMB 100,000 for uncivilized fan gestures during the CBA finals.

China Sports Review go in-depth on the F1 dream-becoming-reality of Ma Qing Hua here.

Sebastian Vettel's F1 career was brought down to earth in Shanghai. He didn't make the podium but he did get some good souvenir snaps of his photoshoot with

WildEastFootball and TheBeijinger.com's Brandon has this interesting article on the similarities between the CSL and CBA.

A missing Chinese badminton star, Huang Sui, turned up after three years. The odd thing was that she did so in Australian colours representing the Aussies at the Australian Badminton Open in Sydney.

Finally, Wang Zhelin. Remember the name. Watch the video.

Photo: YallaF1