Early management career After he retired he was given the opportunity to manage second-tier club
Shanxi Provincial Football Team in 1978, but after two seasons he was unable to help the team win promotion. He then took a position with the
Huochetou Football Association until third-tier club
Yunnan Provincial Football Team offered him the manager position in the 1982 league; however, he was unable to lead them to promotion and left soon after.
China When Xu Genbao left Yunnan he returned to his training to become a professional manager, which led to him take advanced courses at Beijing Sports Institute from 1984 to 1986. Upon finishing, he was given the opportunity to manage the newly formed China B team, which was essentially the
Chinese youth team which was allowed to play in the league system. His time with them was extremely successful and he was even able to win the league title with them in the 1989 league season. Impressed with his leadership, the
Chinese Football Association removed the team from the league and allowed him to take the team to play international tournaments. This led to him being offered the
Chinese senior team position; however, his reign was extremely short when the Football Association decided it wanted a more experienced manager in
Klaus Schlappner to lead the team to the
1992 AFC Asian Cup. Nevertheless, Xu Genbao stayed with the Chinese team as an assistant until 1993.
Shanghai Shenhua With the Chinese Football Association demanding the entire league system be professional,
Shanghai Shenhua wanted Xu Genbao to help them in their transition at the beginning of the 1994 league season. He quickly enforced more professional techniques and tactics as well as developing a team able to fight
Dalian Wanda's dominance within the league. This paid off in the 1995 league season when Shanghai Shenhua convincingly won the league title for the first time in over 30 years. His personal desire to see better training techniques saw him found
Shanghai 02, a youth football team designed to improve the football techniques of young Chinese players. However, the following season back at Shanghai Shenhua was difficult for him, and he was unable to replicate the success he had previously shown despite coming second within the league. Shanghai Shenhua parted ways with him and he joined second-tier club
Guangzhou Matsunichi in the 1997 league season where he immediately made an impact by aiding them to a 4th-place finish and promotion to the top tier.
Dalian Wanda When Dalian Wanda was looking for a replacement for the previously successful manager
Chi Shangbin, they quickly turned to Xu Genbao despite him previously managing their title rivals. He seemed like an inspired choice when he quickly asserted himself within the team and won them another league title in his first season as well as coming runners-up in the
1997-98 Asian Club Championship. The following season, however saw Dalian's fortunes drastically fade when they struggled in the league and flirted with relegation, which saw Xu Genbao resigning at the end of the season.
Return to Shanghai Xu Genbao returned to Shanghai with second-tier football team
Shanghai COSCO Huili, where he led them to the league title and promotion by the 2001 league season. Shanghai Shenhua, which hadn't won the title since he left, wanted to bring him back hoping for him to replicate the success he previously had; he decided that this was the perfect opportunity to sell and incorporate his now adult and professional football team Shanghai 02 into the Shanghai Shenhua team. While most of the Shanghai 02 players had a season of playing third-tier football, his desire to immediately merge them into Shanghai Shenhua proved to be a disaster, and his temper did not bring out the best from his players. With Shenhua flirting with relegation, he was essentially sacked from his post as manager, with
Wu Jingui taking over. Ironically, the following season Shanghai Shenhua won the league title using many of the players brought from the Shanghai 02 squad.
Shanghai East Asia Xu Genbao moved away from management and founded a football school in 2001 called
Genbao Football Academy, but after several years outside management he founded
Shanghai East Asia in 2005 where he named himself the head coach; in 2009 he stepped back and allowed
Jiang Bingyao to replace him while he remained chairman. He became impatient with Jiang Bingyao after the club spent several seasons still in the second tier and decided to become the head coach of the team once more at beginning of the 2011 league season. == Club ownership ==