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The new AFC Champions League season is about to kick off. Starting from the evening of 22nd Beijing time, the qualification match of AFC Champions League will be held for the first time. Zhejiang and Shanghai Harbor will be featured together in the two teams of the Chinese Super League. They will play against Thai Super League powerhouses Thai Harbor and Pathum United to clinch a spot in the AFC Champions League with a decisive win. Apart from the Chinese Super League teams, the most interesting match for the fans is Cairo's Riyadh Victory, who are up against UAE's Dubai National. The match, which will start at 1:20am on the 23rd, is Crowe's AFC Champions League debut. The referee for this match is also an old acquaintance of Chinese fans, Fu Ming.
Not long ago, Riyadh won the Ara title with a 2-1 comeback against Riyadh Crescent, with Crowe being the hero of the team with two goals. I thought this title would be a good starting point for Riyadh Victory's new season, but I didn't want Riyadh Victory to suffer two consecutive defeats in the new league season and get dumped by 6 points from the top of the table early on. If it's understandable that Riyadh's victory in the first match was trapped in a loss of physical sent substitutes, it's impossible that Riyadh's victory in the second round was lost to a Brydai cooperation with only a tenth of a point. They desperately needed a win to stabilize the morale of the army.
For this game, the outside world is still very optimistic about the victory of Crowe's AFC Champions League debut, and even the AFC Champions League official has produced a poster of Crowe on the back of the AFC Champions League trophy. In recent years, the Saudi Arabian league spends a lot of money, Riyadh's victory introduced C Luo, Mane and other world-class stars, the card luxury is much higher than the Dubai National. Dubai National reached the last 16 of the AFC Champions League last season with two wins and four draws in the group stage, finishing second in their excellent group, but then went down 1-3 to West Asian champions Riyadh Crescent.Whether Crowe's debut can be converted into a first win, and whether Crowe can save the team once again, is the first thing to watch.
The second highlight is the referee team from China. According to Beiqing, the AFC has previously finalized the list of referees to enforce the AFC Champions League play-offs. International referee Fu Ming and international assistant referee Mazi will take part in Cairo's debut enforcement. Currently, the two Chinese referees have arrived in Riyadh. In order to enforce such a match, they began to train in China in advance. Fu Ming was once hidden by the CFA for a period of time since the investigation of the paper incident in 2019. In recent years, he has once again been active in the Chinese Super League and in Asia, which shows that FIFA and AFC still recognize his ability. So what about joining the C Champions and C Champions this time around?
It is worth mentioning that Chinese referees will also be reused by FIFA and AFC as various soccer tournaments begin. Some familiar names will appear in future major tournaments such as the AFC Champions League, AFC Cup, Paris Olympic Qualifiers and 2026 World Qualifiers. For example, Chinese Super League whistles Zhang Lei, Wang Di and Shi Xiang, who participated in the Qatar World Cup, will be enforcing the law in the first stage of the Olympic preliminaries. This can't help but make fans sigh that the referees meet international standards. When will our national team meet international standards?
