In the first round of the AFC Champions League Elite East, Shanghai Shenhua played away against Gangwon FC of South Korea. Joao Teixeira scored in first-half stoppage time, but in the second half Gangwon’s Hong Chul and Gu Bon-chul both found the net within ten minutes. In the end, Shenhua lost 2-1, a disppointing start for Chinese clubs in the 2025-26 ACL campaign