The men's national soccer team, which is in seclusion in Suzhou, seems to pale into insignificance compared to the women's soccer team, which has once again reached the top of Asia after 16 years. Today, the most pressing issue for the national soccer team is undoubtedly how the 2022 season will unfold in the operational league. Although the outside world seems to have doubts about the survival value of the national football team, but industry insiders know that the national football team's top priority is to quickly restore the normal order of the league in the new season.
Challenge to fully reinstate home and away matches
Although the impact of the national football team has been declared a failure of the 12 strong, the next two matches in March is just routine, but for the national football team, the biggest blow is not a loss at the national team level, but by the impact of the epidemic, home and away matches two years of the system of full suspension, the Chinese Super League can only be completed in the system of the tournament and was forced to dramatically reduce the schedule. This makes the Chinese Super League has become the world soccer world "alien", which can be deeply felt from the interviews of many foreign aid leaving the team.
Many blame the Football Association for this, but neither the Association, nor the preparatory team for our professional leagues currently in charge of league operations, nor the clubs are willing to adopt this system of play. A more powerful question to ask rhetorically is: why is it that a concert or concert with a capacity of tens of thousands of people can go on normally, while a soccer match with an average of only 20,000 to 30,000 fans cannot be opened normally? As a highly market-oriented event, operating leagues need to maintain their operations through basic commercial revenues such as ticket sales. Banning the admission of fans and forcing the clubs to adopt the match system is a complete "cut" of the clubs' most basic income.
As a matter of fact, the shareholding reform, which is now fully implemented, has also encountered resistance, which is not unrelated to the match-fixing system of the past two years. It is not that no enterprise or company is willing to take over or intervene in the operation of the clubs. Many local enterprises or companies have made one point clear: if they are to subsidize or intervene in the operation of the clubs, at least they should be able to see the teams that they subsidize or intervene in under their noses, and they should be able to see their own teams playing matches at their doorsteps. This is not too much to ask. If they cannot even see the shadow of the team, on what basis can they subsidize or intervene in the operation and management of the club? Is it just "getting money"? No one will be willing to be such a "wrongdoer".
Therefore, our country's professional league needs to continue to survive, the full restoration of home and away system has been imminent. To a certain extent, this is already related to the national football "survival" of the decisive factor. At present, the world's various countries and regions even if the epidemic again serious, soccer league has been fully implemented home and away system, and fully open to the audience. If our country's soccer league can be fully restored, to a certain extent, can also be to the world to fully demonstrate our country in the prevention of the epidemic against the great results.
It is for this reason that even before the end of the 2021 season at the beginning of January this year, the Football Association has already started to think about the full restoration of the home and away system, and started to communicate with the relevant departments at a higher level. Now, the FA has submitted a request report in anticipation of a full reinstatement of the home-and-away system.
Teams are required to report multiple home games
Of course, throughout the process, the Football Association has also submitted a number of plans for the actual situation. For example, in order to ensure the full resumption of the home and away system, this year's Chinese Super League clubs are required to report not only the first home stadium, but also the second and third home stadiums, and these home stadiums must be in line with the relevant requirements of the operating league, and can be put into use at any time. This is mainly to prepare for an epidemic that may occur at any time.
In the case of Beijing Guoan, for example, since the Workers' Stadium is being rebuilt for the 2023 Asian Cup, it would normally choose the Fengtai Sports Center as its first home stadium. However, once Fengtai District encountered the epidemic rebound, Fengtai Sports Center is no longer likely to become the home of Guoan, Guoan may choose Daxing or Shunyi as the second and third home. Of course, the second and third home stadium must meet the standards and requirements of the Chinese Super League, whether it is grass, lighting and other aspects, all need to meet the standards. If the request submitted by the Football Association and the Professional League Preparatory Team for a full restoration of home and away stadiums is approved, before the start of the Chinese Super League, the Football Association and the Professional League Preparatory Team will send relevant personnel to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the clubs to report the home stadiums, and only after meeting the standards can they be adopted as an alternative. And, in the event of an extreme situation, like Guoan may even choose to choose other places outside of Beijing as their home stadium, in order to cope with the normal opening of the league.
This is, of course, only a pre-plan. Both the Football Association and the Professional League Preparatory Team have also prepared league scenarios in the event that the home and away system request fails to be approved. If the home-and-away system fails to open properly, the 2022 Chinese Super League, which includes the Chinese League A and Chinese League B, will still have to open in the same way as the past two seasons, with a tournament system method, but the specific schedule will not be as intensive as the previous year's and every effort will be made to ensure that 34 rounds of league matches can be played.
Kickoff as early as April 22nd
According to the currently drafted plan, the earliest start time of the 2022 season of the Chinese Super League is April 22 and 23, which is mainly due to China's men's national team will participate in the final two rounds of the World Preliminary 12 on March 24 and 29, when China's 99-age U23 national football team will also take advantage of this FIFA-designated window of competition for the national team organized to go to West Asia to practice, that is, the outside world is widely reported as the Dubai The Cup. After completing their respective tournaments, the two teams will take a flight back to China and then undergo the usual "14+7" quarantine. This means that if the men's football two national troops in March 30th departure to return home, 31st arrived in the country, after 21 days of closed isolation, the earliest complete release has been April 21st. Therefore, before this, the Chinese Super League will never be opened, and April 22, 23 is exactly a weekend, so the Chinese Super League organization in this weekend fully opened.
Of course, choosing to open at this point in time, for clubs with international players or U23 players selected, it seems a bit "unfair", because before the start of the league, the team can not carry out the integration. But if the start of the league is further delayed, it is likely to be unable to comply with FIFA's unanimous request, that is, at the latest one week before this year's World Cup in Qatar, that is, before November 14th release. Given the actual situation of the Chinese Super League clubs now, it is likely that they will no longer be able to have more than 10 foreign aiders to play in the World Cup tournament as they did for the 2018 World Cup tournament, but releasing even a single foreign aider will have a negative impact on the clubs. Therefore, according to the drafted schedule, the professional league preparatory team expects to complete all the Super League matches on November 13th.
In this situation, the clubs can only find a way to overcome the problems caused by the international players or U23 players being pulled in the early part of the league. And, this is also in order to be able to more complete in the 2022 season of the Chinese Super League, the maximum possible "save" the foundation of the national football team. For the clubs, the national team in the 24th of this month after the end of the "14 + 7" isolation, in March 10th to travel to West Asia, prepare for the final two matches in late March before the final 12 matches will not be organized to focus, so the clubs can only use this two weeks time for integration.
Two intervals give way to the National Football League
From the weekend of April 22nd and 23rd to the weekend of November 12th and 13th, there are a total of 30 weeks, because there are 18 teams participating in the Chinese Super League this year, so a total of 34 rounds of matches need to be completed. This means that this year's Chinese Super League will appear many times "one week, two games" situation. If cross the FA Cup, the number of double games a week may increase.
Compared to the previous two years, the 2022 Premier League season will also be suspended in accordance with the national team competition window designated by FIFA, but not for as long as the previous two years. According to the 2022 calendar drawn up by FIFA, after the national team competition window, which runs from March 21 to 29, there are two more national team competition windows, from May 30 to June 14 and from September 19 to 27, to follow. Although China's men's national team in this year has no major tournament tasks, but after all, need to prepare for the 2023 Asian Cup, so will still be centralized, and the Chinese Super League will also be suspended in these two national team competition window.
In addition to these two windows, the East Asian Cup, which will be played in China from July 19 to 27, and the Hangzhou Asian Games, which will be held from Sept. 7 to 25, will not suspend the Chinese Super League. At present, according to the Football Association and the professional league preparatory group's opinion, during the Hangzhou Asian Games, due to the 99-age U23 national football team, may affect two to three rounds of the league, ready to use the "exemption" method to solve the problem of player recruitment. If a player is called up by the U23 national football team, his club team will no longer implement the U23 policy during this period. As for how to play in the East Asian Cup, it is still in the process of negotiation and coordination.
National Football League competition window becomes bye period
Although this year's Chinese Super League has initially identified two FIFA-designated national team competition window to suspend, "give way" to the national football training, but at the same time, in order to deal with possible unforeseen circumstances, the Football Association and the professional league preparatory team will also make full use of this competition window, will be set up in these two periods of time as a "bye game
