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Football in Dalian
Football is the most popular sport in Dalian, as the city bears the name "City of Football" (Chinese:足球城) in its recent history. Dalian trained hundreds of professional football players, many of which represented China national football team.

Introduction
Football teams in Dalian could date back into the 1920s. In 1946, Dalian Shipbuilding Company established a football team. A formal Dalian football team was formed in 1983. The team name used to be Pearl, Xinghai and Hualu. Based on the existing team, Dalian Wanda were China's first team to turn professional in 1993. They became Dalian Shide in 1999 as the Wanda group decieded to quit football, and dissolved in 2012 due to financial and political issue. Dalian Wanda set a few records in China's professional football, including most champions in the professional era (8 times), longest unbeaten streak (55 matches, from 1995 to 1998) and longest unbeaten home matches (57 matches, from 1994 to 1998).

Dalian Shide used to operate a few affiliated clubs, Dalian Saidelong and Dalian Sundy, both of which were sold and moved to other cities, and eventually dissolved. Retired players and former officials from Dalian Shide formed Dalian Transcendence (dissolved in 2018) and Dalian Zhixing.

Dalian Aerbin were established in 2009. They became Dalian Yifang in 2015. Wanda officially returned to local football in 2018, but did not change the team name until 2020, when they became Dalian Professional, or Dalian Pro in short. The team eventually ceased to operate in early 2024.

Dalian Shide were the only club to appear in continental matches.

As of 2024, Dalian Zhixing is the only existing professional team in Dalian.

History
Early history of football in Dalian was mostly recorded by Zhu Yuanbao (朱元宝), former chairman of Dalian Football Association, and former team official of Dalian Wanda.

As the Chinese football decided to turn professional in 1992, Dalian began to reform the existing Dalian football team into a professional football club. In 1993, Wang Jianlin and the local sports bureau reached agreement to establish Dalian Wanda F.C. based on the existing team. The team...

Present and past clubs
The table below lists all Dalian clubs in top four tiers of the Chinese football league system: from the top division (Chinese Super League/Jia-A League), down to tier 4, the China Champions League. Timeline?