A game at the training ground – and one where the opposition wore GPS tracking vests over rather than under their shirts – seems an odd thing to count as historic but, as we’ve all seen with the pandemic, life happens when you are busy making other plans.

As it was, history was made.

This preseason friendly offered an indication that the two-time AFC Champions League winners and eight-time champions of China, the team who signed Serie A and La Liga winner Robinho, the club who coaxed World Cup winning coaches Luiz Felipe Scolari and Marcello Lippi to Guangzhou, and made Dario Conca one of the best paid footballers in the world, finally did what they had said they would.

In 2017, Guangzhou Evergrande chairman Xu Jiayin – currently one of China’s richest men – declared that he wanted his club to have an all-Chinese team by 2020.

Three years later his wish has been fulfilled.

In a way.

Fabio Cannavaro fielded a fully Chinese side at the Panyu training ground.

Cynics would point out that three of his all-Chinese side were Brazilian – Elkeson, Ricardo Goulart and Fernandinho.

The first two were on the scoresheet and Elkeson, now also known as Ai Kesen, was the captain.

The debate over whether Paermanjiang fulfils the “all Chinese” criteria is perhaps more suited to the Uygur Human Rights Project or other NGOs that shine a light on human rights violations taking place in the 19-year-old’s homeland.

Let’s take it on face value, one where he – a footballer held as a hope for the 2024 Olympic team – and Mirahmetjan Muzepper, the only Uygur to play for the Chinese men’s national team, are the faces of a new China, the “new normal” if you like.

The same goes for the Brazil-born trio of naturalised players. Yes, critics can say that shortcuts were taken in creating an all-Chinese team, but not only is it legal it is what football has been doing for years, with the great Alfredo di Stefano swapping Argentina for Spain in the 1950s.

It also seems a timely reminder that many of the rest of the world’s battles with racism, in a war that is not yet won, were won over with football.

China, and nowhere more so than Guangzhou, has had an increase in racist attacks because of the coronavirus and an increase in positive cases being brought into the country from overseas. Maybe Evergrande’s “new normal” will work towards changing attitudes?

Maybe not, and nor should it have that responsibility but it is food for thought and it is certainly not the only thing to chew over in what should be a meaningless preseason friendly.

A case in point: has the Evergrande Football School finally come good? The arrival of Paermanjiang was matched with fellow teenage academy product Tan Kaiyuan, who is a year younger at 18. The academy has impressed at youth tournaments but so far failed the litmus test of producing first-team players. These two look like, after several false dawns, the balance might be tipping.

Where does this all leave Evergrande’s non-Chinese foreigners? Brazilian duo Paulinho and Anderson Talisca are two of the best, if not the two best, players in the CSL and have been vital to the club’s success.

Talisca, like many foreign players, appears to still be overseas. There has been talk of foreign players and coaches being given special visas to allow them back into China, with overseas travellers currently banned.

Perhaps the travel restrictions will have the side effect of every team turning towards an “all-Chinese” team of their own, aided by the naturalised foreign-born contingent being allowed to enter the country on their Chinese passports. Their future could also be decided by the news that Evergrande reported a loss of US$274 million for last season and still have plans to build the biggest football stadium in the world.

We will see.

Football’s return will be decided this week and everything will fall into place thereafter.

What also might fall into place is the answer to the conundrum that has driven so many headlines since China’s focus on football.

“Why can’t China pick 11 soccer players from 1.4 billion people?” is the question on everyone’s mind. Maybe Evergrande’s “new normal” is the answer.