The remarkable ability of football to conjure up extraordinary storylines has been shown repeatedly over recent months: from Leicester City's Premier League title win, to Iceland and Wales' successes in the Euro 2016 knockouts.
Yanbian Fude FC will not attract the same global attention but Chinese football also has its own scarcely-believable story to tell.
Just 18 months ago, at the end of the 2014 campaign, Yanbian looked to have been relegated to the country's third tier. The club finished bottom of the table with just 18 points from 30 fixtures, only to be handed a reprieve as three of the sides above them disbanded ahead of the new campaign.
And, 12 months later, a remarkable turnaround was completed as the club claimed promotion and the China League One title with 61 points -- despite having one of the league's tightest budgets.
Under new manager Park Tae-Ha, they were a side reborn, quickly becoming famed for their fast-paced attacking football and they currently lie sixth in the top flight despite little change in personal.
When understanding Yanbian, though, it is firstly important to understand the club's unique identity in Chinese football. The city of Yanji is within just a few kilometres of the border with North Korea and home to a sizeable population of ethnic Koreans (circa half of the 400,000 residents).
The autonomous region's long-standing love of football is largely attributed to this cultural difference. As club general manager Yu Changling said earlier this year: "In Yanbian football is not just football, it's central to the culture. It's life."
However, the area had been without a top flight side since the club's entire squad was sold following relegation in 2000. Talented local players have continued to emerge, but have gone on to achieve success elsewhere.
In spite of the difficulties, the side enjoy great support for each home game with a local supporter culture distinctly Korean in flavour. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that seven of the club's eight wins this campaign have come in front of their highly partizan support.
For the club's Gambian forward Bubacarr "Steve" Trawally, it is no coincidence.
"When we play at home, the stadium is full even one or two hours before kickoff," he told ESPN FC. "They really push us to get results and we even won against the top sides. They really love football up here.
"It is our home form which has taken us to sixth place and the support of the community has really helped."
Given the influence of the Korean peninsular on the local area, it is understandable that the club have opted to draw their head coach and three foreign players from the region. With shared culture and language, it is little surprise too that the side are often cited as among the most cohesive units in the division -- and Park's intriguing methods deserve major credit.
Required to eat lunch together in tables of four, the players are permitted to discuss only football and remain seated for the full half an hour. Each day, the seating patterns are then altered. Understanding each others' game intimately is the goal both on and off the training pitch.
Park's regime is undoubtedly intense, but Trawally believes it is these small details which are allowing the club to compete with their more wealthy rivals.
"The coach deserves a lot of credit. Since he came in he changed everything and he keeps a close eye on the Chinese players," he told ESPN FC. "For example, the players now must all stay in the clubhouse on the night before a game.
"We run more than any team in the league, we work really hard. We train twice a day two or three times each week and it has really helped the team physically. Other clubs are better technically than us, they have bigger foreign players and more experience. But our advantage lies in our physical preparation."
Yanbian's game has been built on fast transitions and their physical prowess comes to the fore.
No side spends more time in their own defensive third than Park's team (31 percent) and, indeed, only Hebei spend less in the final third (23 percent). Yet, in spite of that, the side are the fifth top scorers in the division with 29 goals in 21 appearances.
It is the speed of their attacking play which is central to their success, with their interplay and movement in advanced areas often overwhelming for opposition defences. Park has identified that Chinese Super League (CSL) defences are frequently vulnerable against pace and built a system specifically to capitalise on it.
In a league epitomised by big money overseas signings and superclubs created at the whim of a new owner, Yanbian's deeply-engrained club identity is a pleasant anomaly. Even when they secured RMB80 million worth of sponsorship from Shenzhen-based Fude group in 2015, RMB60m was immediately assigned to the development of youth football. They are a club with long-term stability in mind.
The end to their domestic campaign may now prove tough, with several away trips to sides desperately scrapping for points ahead, but whatever now happens, Park's team have shown the way forward.
If the CSL is to build an attractive brand for spectators, it is upon such strong identities that they must build their product. Amid all the headline-grabbing transfers, the lessons Yanbian offer should not be overlooked.
Chris Atkins
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