On April 8, the Chinese Football Association officially unveiled the schedule for the 14 rounds of matches in the first phase of the 2021 Chinese Super League season. In this schedule, Wuhan Division will welcome their first opponent of the new season, Hebei Division, on April 23rd at 18:00 in the evening.
According to the FA's plan, the new season of the Chinese Super League will be divided into three stages. The first stage will be played in Guangzhou and Suzhou, using a double round-robin system. Wuhan is included in Group B of the Suzhou tournament, with Beijing Guoan, Shanghai Harbor, Shanghai Shenhua, Hebei, Tianjin Jinmen Tiger, Dalian and newly promoted Changchun Yatai in the same group. In order to better help China's men's football team prepare for the last four rounds of the Asian Round of 40 in the World Qualifying Tournament, the first stage of the tournament has been subdivided into two phases: five rounds of the first stage were played from April 20 to May 17, while nine rounds of the second stage were concentrated from June 21 to August 5.
Observing the schedule, Wuhan's stronger opponents in the first five rounds are limited to Shanghai Shenhua and Beijing Guoan. Shenhua's reinforcement efforts in the new season are among the highest in the Chinese Super League, signing a number of powerful players, including foreigners Bassogo, Adrian and Chinese Super League champion captain Wu Xi, while Guoan has also made gains in internal reinforcements, and its overall strength is slightly higher than Wuhan's. The Hebei team, Changchun Yatai and Tianjin Jinmen Tigers are likely to be similar to Wuhan's in the first five rounds of the competition. Hebei, Changchun Yatai and Tianjin Jinmen Tigers may have similar strengths to Wuhan. Especially Tianjin Jinmen Tiger due to the hasty completion of access, the lineup is not complete, and temporarily no foreign aid, the strength is not optimistic. Hebei team due to the financial difficulties of investors, a large-scale personnel adjustment, Toure, Luo Senwen and other players have moved to other teams. Changchun Yatai although in the warm-up game performance, but the actual strength of how, still need to see the real chapter in the Chinese Super League.
Facing five opponents in the first stage, Wuhan is expected to bring surprises with its current lineup. Currently, Wuhan has three foreign aiders returning to the country, Carrizo and Mbia have joined the training, and Evra is in isolation in Shanghai and is expected to join the team around the 17th. This means that Wuhan will have three foreign aiders in the first stage of the game. Rafael and Baptiste, who are in Brazil, are expected to miss the first phase of the tournament due to the epidemic, but the good news is that new recruits such as Huang Zichang will be joining the team later.
According to the plan, Wuhan team will hold the departure ceremony in Han on the 13th, and then the team will go to Suzhou to prepare for the new season. In order to sharpen the technical and tactical playing style and confirm the starting lineup in advance, Wuhan team has recently played a number of warm-up matches.
Just this afternoon, Wuhan team played a warm-up match with Wuhan Sanzhen in the base. With the free kick of captain Li Xing, Wuhan won 1-0. It is worth noting that the Wuhan team in the first and second half, respectively, a set of lineups, especially after the rotation of the midfield overall strength remains unabated, showing a strong bench depth, which also provides Li Xiaopeng in response to the intensive schedule of the tournament system provides a variety of options.
