If the Terriers are solid, other opponents seem to have a hard time winning. But would this really be the case? The answer is not as straightforward as the crowd might expect.
In the "Golden Dollar Era" of soccer, Taishan had no obvious advantage. At that time, financial strength was regarded as a symbol of strength. Although Taishan did not lack money, the investment of money needed to go through a cumbersome review, not as flexible as other teams. However, with the end of the "golden dollar" era, the transfer bubble of the Chinese Super League burst. After the FA's policy adjustment, Taishan team's advantage is gradually highlighted, the value of the players back to the essence.
The strength of a team is often determined by foreign aid. However, with the departure of high-level foreign aid, teams have to pursue cost-effective, at which time the level of domestic players becomes the standard to measure the strength. If we compare the strength of domestic players, only three teams in the Chinese Super League are far ahead: Evergrande, Shanghai Harbor of the giants, and Taishan, a team with excellent youth training.
Most of Evergrande's domestic players are from the golden era, and Xu Jiayin has included many international players including Lippi. Do you think the strength of the team will be poor? But with the recession of capital, the domestic players of Evergrande under the coaching of Cannavaro drew to a close in 2019. The ebbing of capital caused Evergrande, which was originally assembled for money, to fall apart, disband at one point, and even withdraw from the Chinese soccer world. Although it has now been relegated to the Central League, its situation is still difficult.
Shanghai Port's dominance among domestic players is largely due to the quality of players from the Genbao base. However, this is limited to Stanley Wang, Yan Junling and Wu Lei. Genbao's youth training not only delivers talents to Shanghai, but also develops them for Shenhua. Shanghai Port's domestic players are strong, thanks to the background of state-owned enterprises, not affected by the FA policy. Whether the club name change or share reform, Chen Xuyuan as head of the Football Association, Shanghai Port have maintained the "buy buy" strategy.
However, the strong squad did not achieve the desired results in the previous seasons. The main reason was the lack of tactical level of the manager.
In recent years, Taishan's reinforcements have been focused on foreign players, with fewer domestic players being introduced. In previous seasons, Taishan relied on domestic players to have the last laugh, and most of these players came from Luneng's youth training. However, the team's strikers lacked domestic talents and had to rely on foreigners. This season, Taishan introduced a large number of domestic players, but the new season still has a lot of mistakes.
So the question arises, as two of the strongest teams in the country at the moment, who is better, Shanghai Port or Taishan?
Currently, from the Chinese Super League table, the gap between Taishan and Shanghai Port is obvious. Shanghai Port is regarded as a league giant and stands alone! But is the gap between the two really that big? Let's look back at the first meeting between the two teams this season for some clues.
In the 14th round of the Chinese Super League, Taishan met Shanghai Port. In the match, Shanghai Port had a slight advantage in possession, but Taishan was slightly better in threatening balls and scoring chances. The data shows that Taishan's possession and threatening goals were widely distributed, such as Liu Binbin, Chen Pu, Li Yuanyi, Fellaini, Moises, and even wingback Liu Yang had scoring chances. In this regard, Shanghai Port seems to be slightly insufficient.
This shows that Shanghai Port is not as good as Taishan in terms of the overall play of domestic players. In other words, if Oscar leaves the team, the attacking power of Shanghai Port will definitely drop dramatically.
But why did Shanghai Port outperform Taishan? Is it because of Oscar alone? No, the main reason is that the Taishan team has encountered a lot of difficulties this season. Both in the pre-season and post-season, Taishan's preparations and matches were not satisfactory. Head coach Hao Wei and Fabio almost dragged down the whole team.
During that time, Taishan's preparation was chaotic and lacked focus. During matches, the team could only cope with the predicament with the mentality of "soldiers blocking water". Naturally, the poor performance was justified.
However, after Choi Kang-hee took over, the veteran brought Taishan out of the woods quickly with his control of the team and targeted psychological counseling. During this period, although Shanghai Port also made progress, Taishan performed equally well. The only chance of competition was a direct match between the two teams. However, due to the referee's decision, Taishan ended up with three points.
The strength of the Taishan team, which is back on track, should not be underestimated. After Choi Kang-hee took over, Taishan lost only one away game. Those who watched the game know that the venue factor limited Taishan's chances and they eventually lost.
If Taishan team plays normally, Wuhan Sanzhen of the last season simply can't compete with them.
Wuhan Three Town played the Kaiserslautern myth on Taishan in their first season after promotion to the Premier League, but did Wuhan Three Town really excel?
Maybe, at least better than other teams. But there is still a gap compared to the Terriers.
The reason for this is because Taishan suffered from injuries in the early part of last season. Fellaini missed multiple games and Zheng Zheng was suspended by the FA. The entire starting lineup was in trouble, and Son Junho was transferred to the South Korean national team for the World Cup. At the critical moment, the FA suspended the game for various reasons, directly destroying Taishan's hope of chasing points.
It was not until the last round of the league that Taishan assembled their strongest lineup to fight injuries and suspensions. Although they eventually tied the points, they could only finish off Shenhua of Wuhan Sanzhen due to goal difference disadvantage.
If Taishan could have assembled their starting lineup in half a season, the title might have been up for grabs. But as it is, there is no point in regretting. We can only focus on the present and look to the future.
It is not my intention to tout the Taishan team, but in the current Chinese soccer environment, it is difficult for other teams to beat a Taishan team that has remained healthy and stable. The only thing that can beat Taishan is the fact that they have internal problems that give their opponents a chance to take advantage of, at least for the time being.
