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Chinese football is bigger than ever, and we have two teams in town to watch as this year's CSL league kicks off on Saturday when .

This season, everything's gone kind of mental because Chinese clubs have started outbidding European clubs for some of the best players around. For example, the English Premier League side Chelsea wanted to buy Columbian striker Jackson Martinez from Atletico Madrid, but they weren't able to match Guangzhou Evergrande's bid of 30 million Euros.

China Signs More Star Players

Shenhua's new player Freddy Guarin Other big names in China now are Brazilian player Ramires, who Jiangsu Suning of Nanjing spent 50 million Euros on. They also have another Brazilian, Alex Teixeira. If you haven't heard of these names, take our word for it -- they are serious stars getting serious money, and it all means that world sports media has a boner for Chinese footy. The good news is we can all get in on the superstar action as we have two of the best Chinese Super League teams in town. Shanghai SIPG, runners-up in last year's league play at in Xujiahui, and Shanghai Shenhua, the city's oldest club, play at on the Northside. Shenhua have Colombian playmaker Freddy Guarin, who they signed from Inter Milan last month, and SIPG's star player is Ghana captain Asamoah Gyan who used to play for Sunderland in the EPL. Shanghai's other team -- Shanghai Shenxin -- got relegated last season and now are in the second division. There's not much going on down there. For Shenhua news check . And for SIPG news, . You can see , for both teams. Tickets

It used to be easy to get tickets, but this isn't the case anymore. Your best bet is to go down to either stadium a few days before the match and grab tickets from the ticket offices. Cheapest tickets start at around 80rmb. If there's no tickets there will be scalpers hanging around. Buy at your own risk, but usually its fine. The Shanghai Derby

The Shanghai Derby -- Shenhua vs. SIPG -- is next Friday, . This game and is one of the hottest games in China. Last year the Shenhua fans turned up hours and hours before the match to start singing outside the stadium. Here they are to the stadium. "Only Shenhua Rep Shanghai"

This year the derby is hotter still because a bunch of Shenhua fans who live in Melbourne turned up to support Melbourne Victory when they played Shanghai SIPG in the Asian Champions League. They had a huge banner which read "Only Shenhua Rep Shanghai", which got the whole Melbourne crowd signing "There's only one team in Shanghai," and the Shenhua fans were thanked on the Melbourne official club Twitter account for their support. This pissed off a lot of fans from other parts of China who accused Shenhua fan's of "not loving their country enough." And SIPG striker Wu Lei trash-talked Shenhua fans on Weibo over the incident as well. All this shows proper football culture in China is alive and well, but has some way to go - would Manchester City fans support Manchester United in European games? Of course not. Anyway the Shanghai Derby is the real deal. Start looking for tickets now, but if you can't find any, there's still going to be plenty of CSL action in Shanghai from now until November when the season finishes up. Stay tuned for more from The Soccer Desk. *** Cameron Wilson, a.k.a. Shanghai_Ultra, is China's number one soccer fan. He blogs about the subject regularly on his site and spins proper techno with the V/O/I/D crew at The Shelter.