At the beginning of 2019, Wu Lei gave up his high salary to go to Spaniards, becoming the hope of Chinese soccer. Fans want more Chinese players to go out, but in the past three years, besides Wu Lei, only one Li Lei has actually gone abroad.
Shandong Luneng bought Fellaini from Manchester United for 12 million euros, Guangzhou R&F spent 6 million euros on Moussa Dembele from Tottenham, Dalian spent 20 million on Hamšík, and Tianjin Teda also signed Wagner from Bayern Munich. Promotion horses Shenzhen Jiazhaoye and Wuhan Zhuoer also spent a lot of money on signings. Adjustment fees can't stop the Chinese Super League from buying big.
At that time, league concerns also emerged, including the exit of many lower league teams, including the problem of wage arrears has spread to the Chinese Super League, including the Tianjin Quanjian Thunder hosting ...... buried many ambiguities and hidden dangers.
At the end of 2019, Lippi announced his resignation as China's head coach with many angry but thought-provoking words, criticizing the Chinese team for having "no desire, no courage, no fighting spirit, and no way to implement a strategic deployment," and lamenting that "my salary is very, very high He lamented that "my salary is very, very high", and later announced directly: I quit.
The CFA is starting to re-select coaches, going back to the local coach route. This time, they like Li Tie, who coaches at Wuhan Zall. After Wu Lei landed in La Liga, Li Tie pushed the club to sign Spanish striker Baptista in what has now become a controversial incident.
Downfall:Tragedy after tragedy, from Asia's first league to Asia's 16th
In 2021, the Golden Dollar era of the Chinese Super League came to a complete end, with Jiangsu Suning withdrawing after winning the title, Shandong Taishan being disqualified, and Shanghai Port losing to Kaya Philippines in the qualifying round. At this time the problem of teams defaulting on wages was quite serious. In addition, the AFC Champions League adopted a tournament system and needed to be isolated after returning home, the AFC Champions League became a chicken rib.
In the 2022 season, the same plot played out again. This time, Changchun Yatai announced their withdrawal and Shanghai Port had no choice but to forfeit the match. The CFA, which had previously made way for the national soccer team, continued to have no intention of making way for the AFC Champions League. Shandong Taishan and Guangzhou could only compete with their ladder teams and the final result was 1 draw and 11 losses.
The immediate impact of the poor record has been a drop in technical points in the Chinese Super League and a reduction in the quota for the AFC Champions League. The Chinese Super League, which, along with a good record, used to be ranked first and known as Asia's No. 1 league, has now dropped to 16th place, behind India and Iraq.
In the 2023-2024 season, the AFC Champions League will be changed to a cross-season league, and the Chinese Super League will still have a "2+2" quota. However, in the 2024-2025 season, the Chinese Super League will only have one AFC Champions League quota, meaning that only the Chinese Super League champion will be able to participate. In the second tier of the AFC Cup, the Chinese Super League will have a "1+1" quota.
Isolating the National Football League: poor record, player breakdowns
In three years, China has participated in 14 official matches, including 0 in 2020, 10 in 2021 and 4 in 2021.
These days, it hurts. In Asia, by contrast, 2022 World Cup host Qatar not only participated in the Asian Top 40, but also in European qualifiers, the North American Gold Cup, the Arabian Cup and more than a few warm-up matches, while neighbors Japan and South Korea competed against Brazil, Ghana and others.
China's only warm-up matches were five unofficial matches against the Chinese Super League and the Chinese First Division, winning five in a row. This has become a joke for many of our media and fans.
After the 2020 Chinese Super League was forced to participate in the tournament system, at least in the final of Jiangsu Suning home and away against Guangzhou Evergrande had fans. the 2021 season saw fans intermittently get into the third game, but attendance was poor. After all, the hardcore of having fans go all the way elsewhere, undergo nucleic acid testing, and avoid quarantine just for a low-quality Chinese Super League game is becoming less and less common.
Towards the end of the season, with the change in the anti-epidemic policy and gradual liberalization, many teams actually got home stadiums and actually let their fans into the stadiums. In Chengdu's match against Wuhan Sanzhen, 32,000 fans poured in. In the final game, which included the championship ceremony for Wuhan Sanzhen and a crucial game for Zhejiang to enter the AFC Champions League, a large number of fans attended the game. The atmosphere really disappeared for too long, although most still wore masks.
In contrast, the experience of many teams and fans can only be described as painful and helpless. Qingdao Yellow Sea entered the Chinese Super League in 2019. at the end of the 2021 season, the team simply withdrew from the professional league due to financial difficulties. Instead of playing an official game at home due to an epidemic, they disappeared off the map of Chinese soccer.
It was a similar situation in Chongqing, where the team fought to the last minute for the second year in a row, with no time to say goodbye to the home fans and announce that they would never be seen again.
For example, the league cannot follow the normal schedule and the complete loss of away matches will result in the interests of sponsors not being safeguarded, and the dividends and interests of the clubs are bound to be greatly jeopardized.
Unfortunately, with no big brands, no viewers, and a chaotic Chinese Super League, the commercial value of the league has hit rock bottom and cannot attract more and better sponsors and broadcasters, especially for the 2022 season, which initially started out as a month-long, 10-round, 3-day average to make way for the national soccer team, and continued during the World Cup, which looked annoying when spit was worthless in comparison.
One of the most immediate results of the Asian Cup is that the Chinese team hasn't played any official soccer matches since the end of the Top 12 tournament this past year. Head coach Li Xiaopeng has not made any public appearances or visited a single game in the Chinese Super League. Whether he continues as the national soccer coach remains a mystery.
Times are different, a cell phone can solve almost all problems, a short video software can make everyone happy all night. Watching the five major leagues in full swing, watching the passion of the World Cup players and fans, Chinese soccer seems to have become an outsider, not only do we no longer care about the game, the team and the players, and even completely entertained Chinese soccer, all kinds of spoofs, rumors, and become all kinds of network celebrity traffic harvesters.
Even in the first 12 games before the World Cup in Qatar, there was still hope, but it was disappointment and even despair. Yes, with the current strength of the national soccer team against Australia and Japan, it's basically impossible to make the first 12 games. But if there was no epidemic, would it have given Chinese soccer players more hope, at least under normal circumstances, even if you knew the script would result in failure?
I can't go back. Solving these problems is imminent
The world is full of well-intentioned concealments and malicious confessions. The arrival of the epidemic not only accelerated the collapse of the Chinese Super League's golden dollar league, but also exposed more of China's soccer problems, leaving previously expectant fans choosing to stay away, not watching, not listening, not paying attention to Chinese soccer, a damage that is often irreparable.
Many things in the world are very subtle, suppose, if there is no epidemic factor, the national soccer coach Li Tie, will complain about losing the home field, so that the team scored 6 points less, will be in the press conference crazy output, if there is no controversy, Li Tie a series of serious violations of the law, will continue to be covered up? Chinese soccer players will continue to wear a mask singing and dancing?
Hypotheticals are hypotheticals after all, and no matter how much you look back, you will eventually have to face the future. Because time simply cannot be reversed.
The top priority for Chinese soccer remains making the league healthy and normal, while urging the music department to address the issue of unpaid wages. Normalize the schedule and resume home and away matches. In the era of the golden dollar, not to mention five years, or even ten years can not go back, in this case, it is best to recognize the reality, give up the illusion, step by step to start again.
How many years have been stolen from us before we can put our feet up and work from every step?
Over the past three years, all walks of life have been affected to a greater or lesser extent. Some have stood up after setbacks, wiped away their tears and continued on their way, while others are still struggling in the mud. Although the impact of Chinese soccer has not yet reached a fatal level, rebirth is not excessive.
Three years after being stolen by the epidemic, Chinese soccer does not help to feel and remember the once glorious years. Frankly speaking, Chinese soccer has been stolen for more than three years, rather than standing in front of the mirror to their own unbearable and scars.
All that cleverness and deception, all those unrealistic fantasies, serve no other purpose than to make Chinese soccer drink poison to quench its thirst and fall into unrealistic fantasies.
