On June 23, the suspense of the Chinese Super League schedule has not yet been unveiled, and various media outlets are keeping an eye on the final decision of the Football Association. Soccer commentator Zhao Zhen offered his insights on the organizational conflict between the national football tournament and the league.
Zhao Zhen pointed out in the article: in the face of the contradiction between the Top 12 and the league, the problem mainly focuses on two aspects. On the one hand, the country's epidemic prevention measures, the national team to compete abroad, return to the team need to experience 14 + 7 days of isolation, which is equivalent to the national team away from home, the league therefore lost three weeks of game time.
However, even when the national team returned, I observed that they were still able to train in the quarantine area. Based on this, could we consider that the national team trains intensively during the quarantine period and plays closed matches with no spectators and only through live streaming? This would allow the league to be played in a closed loop system, but this would require the full support of the clubs and players.
On the other hand, there are problems with our national team's mode of preparation. We rely excessively on intensive training, believing that this will enhance the team's performance. However, the facts of the past years and the successes of other countries have proven that this view is not valid. If the league is suspended during the national team's training, how will other players stay in shape? Does the national team have to call all the players in the roster for training? But once the team trains with more than 25 players, the training becomes chaotic. Increasing training time at the expense of the league is likely to lead to a vicious cycle that will ultimately harm the performance of the league and the national team.
Therefore, I think the way to achieve a win-win situation is to implement a closed-loop league and to allow the national teams to avoid a significant increase in training time. Only then can the league be as complete as possible. This is perhaps the plainest expectation of Chinese professional soccer in this season.
