Spanish football teams celebrate Chinese New Year

During the afternoon of Friday, January 27 (January 28 in China) six Spanish clubs displayed their affinity with the Asian country's culture by wishing that particular fan base a Happy New Year. Both Madrid and Barcelona city clubs as well as Real Sociedad and Granada shared tweets and videos, with some even attempting complicated Mandarin to bring in the year of the rooster.

Sergio Ramos, Cristiano Ronaldo, Marcelo and Pepe shared the table with youth team player Lin Liangming to celebrate the landmark.

Barcelona trio Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar were joined by Andre Gomes and Paco Alcacer in trying their hand at some Mandarin for the occasion.

Antoine Griezmann celebrated with almost 100 Chinese youngsters. The bond between the Rojiblancos and China has been strengthened since the Wanda group came on board as shareholders.

La Real's man sponsor is Qbao.com, who are an online company based in China and they ensured they too didn't miss out on the celebrations. Interestingly, the year of the club's founding in 1909 is also the Year of the Rooster.

Espanyol also attempted to engage with their Chinese fan base by speaking some of the local dialect for the celebrations.

Granada, who are chaired by Jiang Lizhang, brought in the Chinese New Year with several messages from their players to fans in the Asian country.