Shanghai Second

In April 2024 a side wearing the colours of Shanghai Port played its first professional fixtures knowing that whatever it did over the following months, it could not go up. Chinese Football Association rules let the reserve teams of Super League and China League One clubs enter League Two, the third tier, but bar them from promotion and keep them out of the Chinese FA Cup. That did not stop the team leading the standings by mid-season. It finished the year where it began, in the third tier, with nothing to show for the run except the games themselves.

The club had been set up for exactly that season and no other purpose. The year before, the same reserve structure had come second in the China League U21 League — the closest thing to a trophy in its short record.

By 2025 it carried a sponsor in its name, running as Shanghai Port Fusheng Jingkai Team.

Home is the Jinshan Sports Center. It holds 30,000. A League Two reserve fixture does not fill anything like that.