In the just-concluded 26th round of China's first division soccer league competition, the former soccer kingdom Guangzhou (formerly Guangzhou Evergrande) drew the end of relegation with a victory. After the match, the players celebrated with excitement and posted on social media to celebrate that this difficult mission was finally accomplished. However, the spread of the news was not without emotion. It's important to realize that only a few short years ago, Guangzhou Evergrande was firmly in the driver's seat of the Chinese Super League.
Even in the Asian Champions League, few teams were able to underestimate them. However, times have changed, and no one expected that Guangzhou would now have fallen from the top of the Chinese Super League to the brink of relegation from the Super League, and hovering just on the edge of relegation in the First Division. Nonetheless, it's still worth a celebration, and it's a sign of how tough the process has been.
The banner behind the photo probably says it all. In the stands, Guangzhou fans have put up the slogan "Don't cheat the youngsters", which is undoubtedly the best interpretation of the team. After selling off many of their big name players and foreign aiders, Guangzhou has spent most of their time struggling in the Central League, and the team is made up of mostly young players, most of them from the Evergrande Soccer School. Despite their impressive performances in their younger years, there is still a big gap between them and the adult team.
This has been one of the key factors in their struggles to stay up, and they have struggled to gain a clear advantage in the Central League.
The Evergrande soccer school's heavy blow is not unrelated to team owner Xu Jiayin's investigation due to personal problems. In the middle of this year, boss Xu had ambitiously proposed to lead Evergrande to realize the dream of returning to the Chinese Super League in three years. However, the reality is cruel, without the full support of investors, the Guangzhou team can only rely on this young team to continue to fight, return to glory almost become a pipe dream.
All they can do at the moment is maintain the status quo rather than continue their slide. This is the root cause of their relegation euphoria. Some people even predicted that Guangzhou are expected to win the AFC Champions League for the third time! This is certainly regrettable.
A league cannot achieve good results if it cannot remain sustainable and constantly changing. The same is true for Guangzhou, the Chinese Super League, and Chinese soccer. This is not only the decline of a dynasty, but also has its own problems and the rules of the game. The foundation of the professional game lies in the word "professional".
