The day has finally come.
Although the Canton team tried very hard to open the hand that was around the throat of their destiny, life was death and it was no longer under their control.
There were no expressions on the faces of the Guangzhou players when the whistle blew, and if one were forced to interpret them, one might go numb.
And this numbness adds a touch of logic to the tragedy of the relegation of the eight champions.
unflinching
On July 9, 2020, Xu Jiayin inspected Evergrande's new base in Panyu, Guangzhou. It is a modern soccer base with three standard 11-a-side natural grass pitches, a standard 11-a-side artificial grass pitch, as well as a caged soccer pitch and sloping track. In addition, an indoor training ground has been created for strength training and recovery training for the team. The first floor of the training complex features locker rooms, a spa, a medical recovery room and a conference room.
At the end of the tour, Hui said with some pride in his voice:
"I've seen a lot of bases around the world and this is world class."
"I hope the team can win the Super League and AFC Champions League double."
Afterward, Boss Xu and then-team manager Carnavaro posed for a photo in front of the base's luxurious gates. In the photo, Boss Xu stuck his thumb out to the camera with a confident smile on his face.
On February 16, 2022, Guangzhou announced the termination of the contracts of five of the team's naturalized players. Gaolat, Eickson, Luo Guofu, Allan and Fernando, once beneficiaries of the gold-dollar Chinese Super League and the first batch of naturalized players that owner Xu hit with a billion dollars, chose to leave before the building collapsed, even though Eickson said that he would always be Chinese and Gaolat said that he was grateful to China. But it is well known that these bloodless Chinese internationals chose to leave because of two words:
"Unpaid."
The word arrears has insulated the Guangzhou team for the past decade. When Boss Xu entered the home stretch, the team was in the doldrums, had no sponsors, and had been forced into the First Division by the Football Association because of match-fixing. As a result, Boss Xu put 10 million yuan into the account in less than 10 minutes, allowing the team to quickly resolve its wage arrears.
Since then, the salaries of the team's players have risen, from hundreds of thousands, to millions, to tens of millions, to hundreds of millions ......
At the peak of the 2013 season, Boss Xu had said in a domineering manner:
"The level of treatment for Chinese athletes should be raised. When the annual salary of Chinese athletes reaches 1 billion yuan, Chinese soccer will reach the European level."
Just after the news of the termination of the contract with the naturalized player, Guangzhou released an internal salary limitation document, which stipulates that the starting salary line for first-team players is 60,000 yuan per year before tax, and the capping line is 600,000 yuan per year before tax - a record for the lowest salary in the Chinese Super League.
In addition to the required salary, the Guangzhou team also tries to make money in every way possible, selling models, handmade, and even live streaming on the Internet, selling jerseys, shoes, soccer balls, and other sports equipment, as well as customized daily necessities such as masks, keychains, data cables, and teas in the music department. The world-class soccer training base is a source of pride for Boss Xu and is also rented out by the team.
"11-man natural grass, 6500 for 2 hours."
A reporter recalled that when the Panyu base was opened to the media for the first time, not only did everyone entering the base need to report, but there were also security guards almost every 10-20 meters, who strictly demanded that the media could not film or walk around at will, and that they could only visit the base according to a prescribed route.
Who knew that two years later, not only were the security guards gone, but so were the restrictions, and all the regulars in that open field were available, as long as you paid them.
On February 19, 2022, Boss Xu, who has not made a statement on soccer matters for a long time, finally spoke up. At Evergrande's soccer management meeting, Boss Xu said only one thing.
"Evergrande is going to continue to do a good job in soccer unswervingly, and the next step is to make a solid contribution to the development and rise of Chinese soccer."
This time, there was no video out, no photos released, just an announcement - the appointment of Evergrande Soccer School Principal Wang Yajun as club president.
In addition to the collapse of their record, a player named Guan Haojin caught the attention of soccer media around the world when he angrily kicked an opponent during a game. Guangzhou AFC goalkeeper He Lipan's initials are HELP, and eagle-eyed foreign fans saw it and joked directly: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
"Guangzhou team is shouting HELP (help), hahaha ......"
Back in the Chinese Super League, the same fate still awaits Guangzhou.
In the second round of the Chinese Super League (CSL) against Wuhan Sanzhen, Guangzhou was defeated 0-6 by their opponents.
0-6, the biggest loss for Guangzhou in the Chinese Super League since Evergrande came into the fold.
What makes Sanzhen so strong is that they have absorbed Guangzhou veterans such as Liu Dianzha, Deng Hanwen, He Chao and Liu Yiming.
Some are rising, some are falling.
In the face of the poor record, Guangzhou coach Liu Zhiyu can only say helplessly:
Zheng took over as coach after the departure of Carnavaro in the 2021 season and led Guangzhou, who qualified for the AFC Champions League without foreign aid, to occasional starts.
In that season's match against Yatai, Zheng Zhi started at center back and played the entire match.At age 42, he played 95 minutes and ran 10,000 meters. After the match, he won the best player award ......
But after a complete change of blood in the team, Zheng Zhi did not stay, but chose to leave a group of veterans. But instead of going to another team, the veteran captain mounted the podium at the Guangzhou Sports Institute and became a teacher in the system. He spoke as a representative of the undergraduate faculty of the Guangzhou Sports Institute at its graduation ceremony in 2022. In his speech, Zheng Zhi described his career in an inseparable language:
"Looking back on my career, I do have some accomplishments, but more memorable are some of the regrets left on the field ......"
Many people have fantasized about how Zheng Zhi, the last boss of Chinese soccer, would leave, but he didn't expect it to be a seamless transition from sports to forums. Someone sighed: for the Northeast, the end of the universe is the establishment.
In the match against Guoan on October 29, Guangzhou collapsed early in the first half, falling behind 0-4. Zheng Zhi shouted anxiously from the sidelines:
"Call him! Yell like me! Loud like me!"
The sound echoed through the empty stadium like an alternative break.
¿Qué serà?
Five days before Zheng Zhi's warm return, Qingyuan, Guangdong Province began a match that not many people pay attention to Guangdong Provincial Games Men's BA Group U15 final, Guangzhou team vs Qingyuan team. In the end, Guangzhou team won the championship.
In terms of the current attention span of Chinese soccer, a low-quality Chinese Super League traffic is only a few hundred to a thousand, not to mention a provincial games up U15 games. As a result, the news seems to be making waves on major media pages.
Who knows that the next day, the game quickly fermented with the outflow of the video, and its strange scenes and the abnormal performance of Qingyuan's players made public opinion point to a fake game.
On December 24, the Guangdong Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision issued a notice dealing with 16 officials, including the director of the Guangdong Provincial Sports Bureau. The next day, the Chinese Football Association also announced that it would ban six people from the Guangzhou Football Association for life.
This matter on the surface has nothing to do with the Chinese Super League Guangzhou team, but the Guangzhou team or the provincial Games Qingyuan team is closely related to the Guangzhou Football Association, Qingyuan Evergrande soccer school, the new season Guangzhou team has a lot of Evergrande soccer school.
What's more, one of the six people dealt with by the CFA was Wang Yajun, the chairman of the Guangzhou club and president of the Evergrande Football School.
The name last appeared at Hui's soccer conference earlier in the year.
Shortly after the FA's punishment was announced, Evergrande also announced that it would fire Wang Yajun and dismiss other Evergrande Soccer School personnel.
It was reported that Wei Shihao, Yang Liyu and others were promised a year of free kicks in exchange for their freedom to leave the team. After all, the $15 million investment at the beginning of the year certainly didn't include the wages of these international players. And the fact that they have been able to successfully complete all of their Chinese Super League fixtures has been part of the advance from the CFL and the Football Association, which guarantees them hotel accommodation and other expenses.
Because Evergrande Group no longer gives financial support to the club.
There are several teams in the Chinese Super League that need to advance their participation fees like Guangzhou.
The Guangzhou Football Association and related management reportedly have no plans for the future or fate of the team, which, after all, was also punished by the Chinese Football Association with a two-year suspension of its membership.
From this perspective, they have no room to worry about the future fate of the Guangzhou team.
And, even in Guangdong Province, Guangzhou has a policy on soccer that will give relegation success to the city of Guangzhou ......
After all, people are Super League teams.
