On August 31st at 19:30 BST.
China Super League (soccer league)
The bye session of the 12th round of the league.
Shanghai Shenhua (soccer team)
Shenhua and Shandong Taishan had a fierce battle at Jinzhou Stadium in Dalian. In the end, Shenhua beat Shandong Taishan 2-1, ending the latter's 9-game winning streak. Shandong Taishan are now four points adrift of leaders Wuhan Sanzhen with a game in hand, making their prospects of winning the title increasingly bleak.
Over the past two months, Wuhan Three Town has been on a winning streak and has now accumulated 12 consecutive victories, just one step away from breaking the Chinese Super League winning streak held by Shandong Taishan and Guangzhou. As the number one rival, Shandong Taishan was once seen as the team with the best chance to challenge Wuhan Sanzhen for the lead with nine consecutive wins before the match. However, with the other teams trailing by at least 13 points, the title race seems hopeless.
Shandong Taishan, who have been showing signs of fatigue lately, suffered a strong counter-attack against Shenhua, who had a full Chinese squad. Although Sun Junhao's long-distance shot created an oolong goal for Shandong Taishan and won the lead for the team, Shenhua, although missing two sharpshooters in the attacking end - Basogo and Cao Yunding - still scored two goals in just two minutes with Liu Yang's two consecutive penalty kicks missed and Liu Ruofan's quick counterattack to complete the reversal.
After this game, Shandong Taishan's 9-game winning streak came to an abrupt end, and after 16 rounds of games, the team continued to rank second with 39 points, 4 points away from Wuhan Sanzhen, who played one game less.On September 14, Shandong Taishan will host Wuhan Sanzhen, a matchup that was once regarded as the focal point of the season's title race. Before that, Shandong Taishan will first face Shenzhen, while Wuhan Sanzhen will face Yatai and Cangzhou Lions. If both teams win, Shandong Taishan will be seven points behind Wuhan Sanzhen before they meet.
Given Wuhan Sanzhen's current state of play and strength, it is quite difficult for Shandong Taishan to win. If Shandong Taishan loses to Wuhan Sanzhen, they will be 10 points behind their rivals, and the suspense of winning the championship will disappear completely. If the two teams draw, Shandong Taishan will still be 7 points behind, and if you win, the gap will be narrowed to 4 points. Shandong Taishan's recent offense relies too much on Kressan, but the latter's two consecutive games of particles, the return of Guo Tianyu has not been able to regain last year's heroism, the defense makes mistakes, the road to defending the title this season is really not small difficulty.
