The club immediately became a major force within the second tier and eventually win promotion to the top level in 1984 when they won the division title.

[6] Domestic dominance continued in the 1997 league season while Dalian narrowly just missed out on 1997–98 Asian Club Championship and Chi Shangbin decided to leave to take on a position with the Chinese national team.

Despite this Dalian had a well-funded and prolific academy that produced numerous Chinese internationals such as Zhang Enhua, Li Ming and Sun Jihai and with another former Chinese national team manager Xu Genbao Dalian were easily able to replicate their success by winning the 1998 league title.

[9] When Milorad Kosanović left to coach the Serbia and Montenegro national under-21 football team the club eventually brought in Vladimir Petrović who guided the team to the recently rebranded 2005 Chinese Super League title as well as 2005 Chinese FA Cup.

On 14 February 2010, Zhang Yalin died of lymphoma in Dalian, Liaoning, aged 28, after a two-year-battle with the disease.

[13] In 1997 the club moved to the recently built 31,000 seat multi-use Jinzhou Stadium in Dalian, China.

[14] Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply.