Iker Sun, which commanded the Chinese Super League in the early and mid-2010s, terminated its contract with Chengdu Rongcheng.
Chengdu officially announced on SNS on the 5th (Korea Standard Time), “The club and Iker Sun decided to terminate the contract early after friendly negotiations.”
Born in 1989, Iker Sun was originally a Brazilian striker named Elkesson. Growing up with the Brazilian EC Vitória Youth, he made his professional debut in 2009, played Botafogo, and joined the Guangzhou Hengda (currently Guangzhou FC) in 2013. Guangzhou, which was investing heavily in the soccer industry at the time, drew a picture of his future by investing 5.7 million euros (about 8.4 billion won) in transfer fees.
His performance was overwhelming. He was a regular starting player from the beginning of the season and became the top scorer with 24 goals in his debut season. He also continued his momentum at the AFC Champions League, contributing to Guangzhou’s first ACL championship.
Ahead of the 2016 season, he left Guangzhou and moved to Shanghai Sanggang (currently Shanghai Haigang). At that time, Shanghai had already recruited foreigners other than the league standard of Hulk and Oscar, and Iker Sun also boasted fantastic teamwork with them and continued to play down as a top Super League striker.
In 2019, he abandoned his Brazilian nationality and naturalized as a Chinese national, and made his A-match debut through the second qualifying match for the FIFA 2022 World Cup in Qatar. He started the match against the Maldives and scored a “multi-goal” to lead his team to a 5-0 complete victory. 먹튀검증
Iker Sun, who left Shanghai and continued his career through Guangzhou and Gremio, returned to China after a year in 2023 after moving to Chengdu led by head coach Seo Jung-won, and was appointed as the main striker, signaling his robustness. However, this season, the time to play was drastically reduced due to the lack of competition to become a starting player, and he finally decided to terminate the contract 18 months after his return. “I sincerely thank Iker Sun for his contribution to the team, and I wish him all the best in the future,” Chengdu said.