109 years ago today, on February 9, 1916 (January 7, 1916 in the lunar calendar), the Chinese football team played abroad for the first time. Football was introduced to China in the late Qing Dynasty, and it was carried out in various universities in the early years of the Republic of China. In the south, the best teams were Nanyang University (now Jiaotong University) in Shanghai, St. John's University and Hujiang University. They joined Nanjing Jinling University, Suzhou Soochow University, and Hangzhou Zhijiang University to form the Donghua Football Club to play against the Westerners football team in the Shanghai Public Settlement. They won many times and attracted the attention of Chinese and foreign sports circles. In 1916, the Overseas Chinese Organization of the Philippines invited six schools to form a college football team to play in Africa. The Donghua football team selected 12 players to form the four university football teams of Nanyang, John, Jinling and Soochow. Among them, Nanyang University had 7 players. The coach, Ma Lisen, and the captain, Liang Zhenmin, were all from Nanyang University. The team left Shanghai by boat on February 9, 1916. This was the first time in history that a Chinese football team visited overseas for a game. The football team played two games in Manila, Philippines, which was a sports powerhouse in Asia at that time. The first game lost to Valorra 0:4 and the second game lost to Pu Ximing 0:3. The results were greatly disappointed by the expectations of overseas Chinese. The Chinese college football team could only quietly return to Shanghai by boat.