Everton fall for the great call of China

Merseysiders tap into a vast market and a sceptical manager is reaping the rewards

If you want to get ahead, get a Chinese. Better still, get two. That's what Everton did, thereby blossoming into the most popular football club in a nation of 1.2 billion people, their matches on TV watched by hundreds of millions. Everton are more popular in China than Liverpool or Manchester United, a statistic guaranteed to ignite a few smiles around Goodison in advance of this afternoon's game at Villa Park, a clash eagerly anticipated from Shanghai to Shenzhen.

It all started when Everton signed a new sponsorship agreement with Kejian, China's leading mobile phone company, for two years at a reported £3m. Part of the deal was that the club would take a Chinese player on a year's loan, something about which the Everton manager, David Moyes, was less than enamoured. Nevertheless, Moyes went off to the World Cup, watched China and nominated the midfielder Li Tie as the man he thought most likely to succeed in English football.

However, with the cameras set to roll on the sponsorship announcement, and millions agog in China, came the news that Li Tie had not finalised his release from Liaoning Bodao. "We had to be seen to be taking one of the Chinese," explained Everton's head of corporate affairs, Ian Ross, which is how the central defender Li Wei Feng said goodbye to Shenzhen Pingan and hello to Merseyside, with Moyes reportedly "in the dark and furious" over the cock-up. The news that Li Tie had completed his transfer and was also headed for Goodison did little to placate the sceptical manager.

This was starkly apparent when Li Tie breezed into the city at the beginning of August, announcing (via an interpreter) that his dreams had come true, to be pulled up short by Moyes' comment, "He will have a great deal of work to do, and much progress to make, if he is to break into our first team". Seven weeks on, Moyes is, said Ross, "genuinely astonished," with Li Tie – despite wearing the No 12 shirt – starting every first-team game and Li Wei Feng getting into the act for one match.

"They are loving it, they are always smiling and enjoying the experience," said Moyes. "Li Tie has played very well. He can see a pass and is controlled in possession. It has taken him a little while to get up to the speed of the games but he is doing well with the ball when he gets it. He has done better than I expected and he is competing in an area of the team where I have a lot of options."

The success of Li Tie, adored back home as the David Beckham of China, has turned a flood of media coverage into an avalanche of frenzied reporting and public adoration. "Within hours of announcing the signings our club shop was full of people from the local Chinese community buying everything with the name Everton on it," said Ross. "We are surrounded by Chinese press at this club, film crews, photographers. They seem to multiply every game, with each programme they send back attracting 70 or 80 million viewers. A lot of people were cynical about the whole thing, but we have been staggered at the way it has worked so far."

Le Wei Feng, 23, and Li Tie, 25 last Wednesday, are key elements in the national team. Feng has 58 caps, Tie 78, and both played all three games in the World Cup. The pair, newly settled in their own apartments, are working hardest of all on their English, though as Feng said: "I don't want to use my mouth to explain, I will show you with my feet." Everton's assistant manager, Alan Irvine, agreed that communication was to some extent a problem. "But I believe in the language of football. Most players can go into a training session anywhere in the world and fairly quickly grasp what is required. They are both intelligent lads, bright and lively, so there has not been a great deal of difficulty about understanding what we want them to do. Where there is a problem is in the heat of the game and the information has to be passed on instantly. How do you tell a Chinese lad to get tight or drop off or push up a bit? But we sat down with their interpreters and gave them some football phrases which they translated.

"Both arrived as unknown quantities, with question marks about how they would cope with Premiership games and the training which has to be of that standard. But they have fitted in very well in all ways. I thought diet might be a problem, but they eat exactly what the rest of the lads eat. We have been absolutely delighted with them, they have been a real bonus because they are good enough players in their own right to be here. There is no way they would have figured anywhere near the first team squad if they hadn't been able to do it, which must be encouraging for Chinese football."

Li Tie played only 25 minutes recently against Manchester City, who fielded another Chinese, Sun Jihai, before being substituted. "He was being overrun and having a bit of a hard time," said Irvine. "On reflection I wondered if it was anything to do with the fact that the game was being televised live back to China and an audience of hundreds of millions. In that case I would be pretty nervous too." Ma De Xing, deputy editor of a Beijing sports paper, reckons Everton have stolen a march by tapping into China's hunger for football. "It is the number one sport in China," he said. "We can watch live on TV the English, Spanish, Italian and German league games, plus the Champions' League. Liverpool and Manchester United used to be the most popular clubs but now Everton and Manchester City have taken over because of their Chinese players. There is little interest in Liverpool or United now."

It is a position any other Premiership club would relish. It could even persuade Villa manager Graham Taylor to forget his goalkeeping nightmares and ponder: "Would I not like that."