Recently, rumors have been swirling about the Chinese Super League (CSL) powers fighting for the AFC Champions League, perhaps sending a clean-cut young team overseas. According to a Beijing Youth Daily reporter, Shandong Taishan, the previous Chinese Super League (CSL) and Football Association Cup (F.A.C.A. Cup) double champions, still sees defending the double as their core goal this season. In the AFC Champions League, Taishan may set up a team that consists of a mix of some first-team players and young players from the ladder to travel to Southeast Asia. For the time being, it seems that most of the Chinese Super League (CSL) teams are inclined to "stick to the CSL".
However, if the Chinese Super League (CSL) teams adopt a "strategic abandonment" of the AFC Champions League this season, then the CSL's position in the Asian soccer world will inevitably be impacted, or even hit hard. The latest AFC Member Association (League) Technical Points Ranking for 2022 shows that the Chinese Super League has fallen from its previous top spot in the AFC to 10th place, and has even been overtaken by the Hong Kong Premier League. The Vietnamese league follows closely behind. The reason for this can be found in the fact that last season, Chinese Super League teams sent "second teams" or "youth teams" to cope with the AFC Champions League and suffered a total loss.
Due to the impact of the epidemic, the AFC did not include the 2020 season's AFC Champions League results of the member associations' professional leagues in the basis of the ranking. However, since last season, the AFC has resumed strict enforcement of the relevant points rules. According to the resolution made by the AFC Match Committee in January this year, the allocation of places in the future AFC Champions League will be implemented in a "one year certain" manner. Taking the end of 2019 as an example, the AFC will allocate the AFC Champions League quota for the 2021 and 2022 seasons based on the ranking points of each association's professional league in the previous two seasons, and the Chinese Super League will be able to keep the "3+1" AFC Champions League quota this season, thanks to this old method. But according to the new method, the AFC will be at the end of 2022, according to the 2019 to 2022 season four seasons of performance to re-ranking member associations (leagues), and according to the ranking situation to determine the 2024 season AFC Champions League quota allocation results. By the end of 2023, AFC will confirm the results of the AFC Champions League quota allocation for the 2025 season based on the same criteria, and so on.
It is worth noting that the Hong Kong Premier League is ranked above the Chinese Super League in this new installment, largely due to the breakthrough made by its Pro League representatives in the group stage of the AFC Champions League last season. To the Super League's embarrassment, this breakthrough was achieved on the basis of taking points from Super League teams. For example, Hong Kong's Jiezhi beat Guangzhou twice during the group stage of last season's AFC Champions League. In addition, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and other member associations of the country actively bid to host the group stage of the AFC Champions League, it is expected that their respective salon team can take advantage of the home advantage in the AFC Champions League to seek a breakthrough.
Prior to that, Vietnam had already shamed Chinese soccer by beating China for the first time in the Top 12. And once the Chinese Super League teams continue their AFC Champions League strategy from last season, the possibility of being humiliated by the Southeast Asian saloons in the new season's AFC Champions League also exists, making a further decline of the Chinese Super League in the ranking list inevitable.
It should be noted that the AFC has in recent years made a strict distinction between AFC Champions League results and the world competition results of member associations' representative teams (national teams). As a result, the performance of Chinese Super League teams in the AFC Champions League is generally unlikely to have a real impact on the national team's subsequent world competition. For the CSL and its saloon teams, the trade-off between the AFC Champions League and the league is a very difficult one. But given the weakness of the Chinese national team's overall skill level, it would be difficult for a Chinese Super League team to make a difference in the AFC Champions League, even if they were to play with a full strength team, without the support of the year's heavyweight foreign aid. In the context of the national team's continued dismal performance, the domestic soccer community has an unprecedented clear understanding of "do well in their own league". From this point of view, even if the abandonment of the AFC Champions League brings pain, or even severe pain, the salons and related parties need to bite the bullet and endure.
