Liverpool FC celebrates Chinese New Year...by ditching football

With 99.7 million followers in China, Liverpool FC wanted to celebrate the Year of the Rooster, Chinese-style. Now, Chinese football may be a bit of a national joke, but nobody's laughing at China in the table-tennis world.

To develop its connection to Chinese fans via a cultural (and paddle) exchange, Liverpool FC recorded an eight-minute table tennis match at Melwood, complete with a stilted plot setup where LFC manager Jurgen Klopp enlists the 'help' of four-time Olympic gold medallist Deng Yaping (邓亚萍) for a staged challenge.

Deng dispatches her young protégée Liu Haoyu (刘昊宇) instead, who then plays doubles with Jürgen against Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino. This is called 'content marketing', a little bird told Ad Nut.

Commentary by local English Premier League pundit Zhan Jun (詹俊) in the Chinese-language version (and Liverpool FC’s own Steve Hunter in English) somewhat makes up for the lack of close-up action shots.

Ad Nut does not like chasing around a ball so much, but if Klopp, Coutinho and Firmino visit Campaignwood for a friendly match in tree-scurrying or hamster-wheeling (in which Ad Nut wins, naturally), Ad Nut may just agree to watch the league for a season.

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