With the 2021 season
China Super League (soccer league)
Deeper into the league season, such phrases appeared frequently in the rubrics, "Fighting eyelids!" "Drowsy!" "Wake up and it's still 0-0?"
The matches got duller and duller, with goals plummeting, draws increasing, and spectators' attention waning.
2021 season
China Super League (soccer league)
is facing a full-blown crisis that is not only about the exit of the club, but also the waning of fan enthusiasm.
It's time to start a home-and-home league, even if it takes games across the year, to break the stalemate of bogged down games.
I remember when I was a child, I saw the "old reporter" headline "a boring war two duck eggs", I think it is particularly apt, just like when I was a child, 100 points was called "a doughnut two eggs", and zero points is "a duck egg two doughnuts". When I was a child, 100 points was called "one doughnut and two eggs", and 0 points was "one duck egg and two doughnuts".
Nowadays, such headlines are no longer in vogue, but the 2021 season has seen a number of games that one would really like to describe as "two ducks in a row".
As of today.
China Super League (soccer league)
Five matches in the first 4 rounds have already ended 0-0, and the match between Guangzhou City and Cangzhou Lions in the 5th round was quite exciting.
Look at the data:
In the first 4 rounds of the 2021 season, 5 matches were 0-0, namely Shenzhen vs Qingdao, Cangzhou vs Henan, Yatai vs Tianjin, Yatai vs Wuhan and Seaport vs Yatai.
In the first 4 rounds of the 2020 season, 2 0-0 matches, Suning vs Taishan and Chongqing vs Qingdao.
The first 4 rounds of the 2019 season saw 2 0-0 matches, Tianhai vs Hebei and Wuhan vs Henan.
The stats are deplorable, so it's even more heartbreaking to look at the goal scoring numbers, because the
China Super League (soccer league)
With 2 matches missing in round 5, here is a comparison of goals scored in the first 4 rounds:
First 4 rounds of the 2021 season, 75 total goals, 2.28 goals per game
.. Of those, 27 in round 1, 14 in round 2, 14 in round 3, and 20 in round 4. There were 2 rounds where the average number of goals scored was less than 2.
First 4 rounds of 2020 season, 98 total goals, 3.06 goals per game
.. This figure has remained relatively stable, with the goals per game still at 3.07 by the 11th round of the 2020 season, and at 2.82 in the final round of the 20th.
First 4 rounds of the 2019 season, 97 total goals, 3.03 goals per game
, finished the season with an even higher 3.09 goals per game average.
Goal scoring has fallen off a cliff from 3.03 in the 2019 season to 3.06 in the 2020 season to 2.28 this season.
As for goals per game, it's 3.09 for the 2019 season and 2.82 for the 2020 season, and with a long way to go in the season, hopefully the final numbers won't be too bad.
Beyond the stats, the intuition is the same: too many games are hard to watch in the extreme, with only the occasional powerhouse matchup seeing some excitement, but it's also filled with all sorts of mistakes and less-than-stellar performances.
For example, Taishan, currently ranked No. 1, head coach Hao Wei was blamed by fans after the 5th round of matches, while ranked "
China Super League (soccer league)
Shenhua, who are "tied for second", head coach Choi Kang-hee has also been blamed. Of course, there are many reasons for the accusations, not only because of poor technical and tactical performance, but these strong teams are facing such a dilemma.
An epidemic, not just an epidemic
2021 season
China Super League (soccer league)
Why is it not good anymore? The reason is very simple, first of all, it is the factor of the epidemic, because of the epidemic, many teams of foreign aid have not returned normally, resulting in this season in the technical and tactical level of the performance of the characteristics of the very obvious: almost the vast majority of the team's attacking power has seriously declined, the number of goals naturally reduced.
Among the current 16 teams, only a few teams such as Shenhua and Shenzhen can guarantee their attacking power because they have relatively good lineups and neat foreigners.
There is another special case for the return of foreign aid in the 2021 season: this time, it is difficult for foreign aid to return because of the epidemic in Brazil, and the players outside of Brazil basically returned, while the
China Super League (soccer league)
The foreign aid brought in, Brazilian foreign aid is mostly strikers, on the contrary, the midfield and backfield foreign aid is mostly foreign aid from other countries, as a result, the strikers of the teams did not come back, and the midfield and backfield foreign aid came back neatly, which also exacerbated the
China Super League (soccer league)
The technical and tactical characteristics of each team's poor offense and strong defense.
In fact, the first 4 rounds of the 2020 season did not go well for the return of the foreigners, but that time
China Super League (soccer league)
The goal tally was a very high one, totaling 98 goals, surpassing the 97 goals scored in the 2019 season.
The other reason is self-evident, and that is the salary restriction policy, whereby big-name players are gradually saying goodbye to the
China Super League (soccer league)
For example, this season said goodbye to Pelé, Hulk and other big-name foreign aid, of course, there is also because of the dissolution of Jiangsu and said goodbye to Teixeira, Eder and so on.
In the context of salary limitation, some
China Super League (soccer league)
Teams don't score many goals even though they have 5 foreigners, the most typical is Changchun Yatai, they are one of the teams with the most complete foreigners, but in 4 games this season, they contributed 3 0-0 scores, with a total of only 2 goals, and of course, the number of goals conceded is very small, only 1.
But in fact, the situation of big-name foreign aiders bidding farewell in the 2021 season is not the most serious, and more big-name foreign aiders are still under contract and will bid farewell only at the end of this season and in the middle of the next season.
That said, the 2021 season
China Super League (soccer league)
The decline in skill and tactics is by no means a coincidence, and this will get worse in the future, even if there is no more epidemic next season.
China Super League (soccer league)
The caliber of the wideouts will also be lower than this season.
Restoration of home and away is imminent
The goal tally alone isn't enough to worry about, after all, this year
China Super League (soccer league)
Suffered the "Brazilian epidemic" this special situation, next year, even if the big name foreign aid farewell, if the teams with all the foreign aid, I believe that the number of goals can still be rebounded.
China Super League (soccer league)
Here's the real dilemma: a continuous conference tournament system that brings in
China Super League (soccer league)
Declining influence.
This decline is not just on a commercial level (also known as ratings), but more importantly is actually the overall impact on the soccer level, which is the hotness of the topic of soccer among the general public.
This is really a problem with the match system: the match system allows spectators to enter the stadium, but there are really only a handful of fans from the two divisions and the surrounding cities, as well as some of the clubs' travelling fans, who are very few in number.
Previously.
China Super League (soccer league)
The league plays every weekend throughout the year, and each game boasts as few as 10,000 to 20,000 fans, or as many as 50,000 to 60,000, with a total of 5,584,386 fans entering the stadium to watch a game over the course of a season, in the 2019 season, for example.
The 5.58 million fans are actually the "walking self-publishing media".
When they are going to the game, they will share with their friends that they are going to the game; when they are at the stadium, they will post their friends' circles, or their personal platforms; when they are done watching the game, they will get together for dinner, and they will also post their friends' circles or their personal platforms while they are at the dinner.
They radiate everyone around them all the time - whether on the road, at the stadium, in restaurants, in the circle of friends, on a variety of media platforms. Even if a person doesn't like soccer at all, he will surely receive soccer-related information in different channels.
But now, as you sit at home watching the game on your computer, with the exception of a very few self-publishing platforms, would you send a circle of friends saying that you are watching the game? Would you send a friend circle saying you are eating after watching the game?
In fact, habits are changing: in the old days, you worked Monday through Friday and watched football Friday night through Sunday night, but now, if you're not a loyal fan, you might just accidentally forget about a game for your so-called home team, or maybe you're finishing dinner with a friend and remember there's another game, at which point you might as well look at the results and forget about it.
If this state of affairs continues, you may go from being a so-called "pseudo-fan" to a soccer stranger.
From this, a return to a normal race system is very, very necessary, and of course, this needs to be co-ordinated with the epidemic prevention, but now, how many people are on the subways and buses all over the country, every day?
Of course, the soccer format needs to be determined in advance, but the way things are going, it's probably time to bring back home and away as soon as possible, and if necessary, it's all perfectly fine from the sixth round onwards.
