This year's AFC Champions League is about to kick off. In the AFC Champions League play-offs, Shanghai Harbour and Zhejiang will make their debut against two strong teams from the Thai Premier League, Pathum United and Thai Harbour respectively.
As the favorite to win the Super League title this season, it is a certainty that Shanghai Seaport will take down Batangas United at home in terms of strength and pre-match ambitions. If Shanghai Seaport is so strong that they can't even make it to the play-offs, they will surely be scolded by the fans!
As the traditional powerhouse of Thai Premier League, Pathum United has not been performing well in the league this season. Although only two rounds were played, they both ended in draws, temporarily ranking eighth in the table. Although the league did not play as strong as it should be, but facing the prospect of the AFC Champions League, the head coach and players have shown strong confidence. The interview said:The team will definitely enter the game and strive to get out of the group.
It looks like encouragement, but people really shouldn't underestimate Baton Rouge.
In order to prepare for the AFC Champions League play-offs at Shanghai Harbor, Batangas United has been arriving in Shanghai since last week and started training early. In the lineup, the foreigners reached seven, as long as there are no injuries to the generals, they all came to Shanghai with the team.
Cardoso and Kelic, the two foreign sluggers in the main backline, balance strength and experience; up front there's Sergeyev (familiar? It's an Uzbek who used to play for Beijing Guoan). In addition, it is worth noting that Baton Rouge has brought in Sung Klaasin, who is known as "Thailand's Lionel Messi". This small man is very flexible with his footwork. When the national soccer team played against Thailand, he did not suffer a lot. The overall strength has improved significantly.
Based on past experience, it seems that against Southeast Asian teams, Chinese Super League teams always seem to have the upper hand on us. However, this time Batangas United has two generals sitting in the backline and I am afraid it will not be easy for Shanghai Harbour to utilize this method. Harbour should prepare a second, third or even more tactics to react when they can't open the game at critical moments.
For Shanghai Seaport, the first goal must be to win over their opponents and advance to the group stage. But while Shanghai Seaport does have a certain advantage in terms of paper strength, the team also has two unstable factors that lead to uncertainty in the match.
Firstly, Javier's failure to rotate the intensive domestic league schedule has resulted in most of the starters being physically drained. This amounts to an invisible danger that could break out at any time. Oscar and Wu Lei, in particular, almost started on the pitch. Even though the team was ahead by a big margin, Javier still didn't want to change them. Originally, Javier wanted to lock up the win at half-time and give the starters a rest, but we all know the whole thing backfired.
Secondly, Javier is not flexible in his use of foreign aid. Of course, we can say that Javier doesn't fetishize the role of foreigners and fully believes that domestic players are better. However, in the Chinese Super League, almost no domestic players want to really outperform the foreigners. We can only say that sometimes the foreigners are not in the best shape.
The AFC Champions League and the Chinese Super League are completely different in terms of the use of foreign aid. The AFC Champions League stipulates that the number of foreign aiders on the field is 5+1, in other words, a team can have six foreign aiders on the field! Knowing that Baton Rouge United has seven foreign aiders, it's very likely that they all showed up. Look at Javier's previous hiring habits. Except for Oscar, all the other foreigners are unstable, even Vargas. If Baton Rouge is overpowered by foreigners, Shanghai Port will probably be passive at first.
In the press conference before the match, Batang United also said that the team may not be as strong as Shanghai Seaport, but the whole team has prepared for a tough game, fully analyzed Shanghai Seaport's tactics and players' characteristics, and believed that the team will definitely achieve good results. In addition, everyone is saying that Shanghai Seaport's home ground is a devil stadium, which is beneficial to the team because the team enjoys this kind of game atmosphere. The more fans there are, the more active the ground will be, and the more excited everyone will be to play the game. We've been to Japan before, where the home stadium is just as frenetic as the atmosphere of the fans, but when we survive, we have an advantage.
Finally, for Shanghai Harbor to win this crucial game, besides relaxing the mentality and tactics, the most important point is to get the first goal as soon as possible and not to delay it too much, which is very important for Shanghai to play at home. Breaking through the opponent's goal as soon as possible will allow everyone to play more comfortably. Otherwise, once you get to the second half of the game and still can't find a way to break through, the mentality will be impatient and mistakes will increase. You have to be aware of the small but powerful nature of the Thai Premier League teams, who will inevitably counterattack, possibly fatally.
There is also an unflattering history to remind Shanghai Seaport not to be careless: since the Chinese Super League teams participated in the AFC Champions League, only two teams have been eliminated in the play-offs, and Shanghai Seaport is one of them.
