As our national team moves towards the final leg of the Asian Zone 12 tournament, a schedule adjustment for the Chinese Super League is imminent. This adjustment is not simply to make way for the national team, but to ensure the stability and fairness of the league under the premise of fully considering our anti-epidemic policy. Recalling the example of the four matches of the Top 40 being transferred to West Asia, anti-epidemic measures have always been the top priority and the quarantine policy cannot be compromised.
Guaranteeing the stability of the league is the responsibility of the Working League Preparatory Group. With reference to the previous procedures of modifying the schedule, this adjustment is expected to be determined through a deliberation and vote at the Super League clubs' group meeting. Before collecting the final opinions of the clubs, the preparatory group will announce the advantages and disadvantages of different programs, and the final program will be released only after fully listening to the opinions.
Adjustments to the schedule are inevitable
How does the rest of the 2021 season play out? How will it be adjusted? What is the focus of the adjustment? The answer is, defense first, national team second, league third.
Epidemic prevention is an unquestionable priority, but does the national team have to be ahead of the league? This approach has always been controversial. In fact, whether the league makes way for the national team this year is not due to the so-called sacrifice of utilitarianism, but there are two objective factors that can not be avoided: firstly, after the national team entered the 12-team tournament, there are two international tournaments in September, October, and November, and in the absence of an epidemic and no need for quarantine, the league does not need to make major adjustments, and only needs to arrange for the national football team to set up matches according to the rules of the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) and the international match day .
However, with the current epidemic and the established national epidemic prevention policy, the quarantine time must be counted, in which case, if the league is to proceed normally, unless all international players withdraw from the league. This would be unfair to the teams that have contributed the most; secondly, even if a few of the big international teams agreed to let the league run as normal with international players out of the league, then the quality and fairness of the league would be compromised. Guangzhou, Beijing Guoan and Shandong Taishan and other big international players can not send the strongest lineup to play, the league also lost its true meaning of existence, not to participate in the league for the international players is also unfair. Therefore
Comprehensive consideration of these two points, as long as the national team into the 12, it is inevitable to avoid the three months from September to November to organize the league, the league schedule for the 12 or epidemic prevention requirements to make way for the inevitable result.
In terms of specific scheduling, there are still international matches in January and March next year, so the only time really left for the league to organize matches is the end of July, the whole of August, December and February of the following year. So is it necessary to organize matches across years? It doesn't really seem feasible at this point either. When the league restarts, it would be good to make sure that the first 14 rounds of the first phase are played before the national teams concentrate again at the end of August, and the schedule is already quite intensive. Then if the remaining 16 rounds are organized in December and February of the next year to ensure that the 30 rounds of this year's league schedule, there will be problems again - February 2022 to experience our country's New Year, there is also the domestic world transfer window, the contracts of many players are signed according to the year, involving domestic players may be able to coordinate, then if it involves foreign players, then the domestic players may be able to coordinate. It can be coordinated, so what if it involves foreign aid? This could make it difficult for many clubs to coordinate contracts and relegation issues.
If the vast majority of clubs are willing to overcome this set of difficulties and insist on a full 30 rounds, I'm sure the league will make a uniform arrangement. That seems unlikely now, and compressing the schedule to 22 rounds would be more feasible.
Race adjustments are preplanned and inconclusive
This newspaper learned from the Guangzhou region, now the Guangzhou region is not on the next stage of the Super League tournament organization and the work of the Alliance preparatory group for formal exchanges, after all, for the current Guangzhou, the epidemic prevention work is the top priority, and the national team's next tournament organization is not yet the final results of the Super League when to start playing are still inconclusive.
There has been no systematic assessment of whether Guangzhou's epidemic prevention and control is acceptable for the next phase of the Chinese Super League (CSL), so it is accurate to say that there has been no definitive word on whether or not the remainder of the first phase of the CSL will be replaced, at least up to this point in time.
However, from a normal tournament management point of view, the preparatory team for the working league must be prepared for both, which means that it must look for a city that can take over once Guangzhou is unable to continue to take on the rest of the tournament.
At the beginning of the year when the selection of the Chinese Super League, the original shortlisted also have Dalian district, and Dalian district for the continuation of hosting the tournament is also very proactive, because the beginning of the year plans to start the league in March, so that Dalian because of climatic reasons is not as good as Guangzhou is more suitable, coupled with the Guangzhou has two Super League teams, and the Shenzhen team is relatively close to the tournament from the operation and attendance considerations, and ultimately selected the Guangzhou. Dalian eventually hosted the Central League match.
If the rest of the tournament Guangzhou can not continue to host, Dalian is still the first choice, but then, will inevitably affect the already there to confirm a good competition schedule of the Central League team, so whether the adjustment is fair, as well as the Dalian district is willing to make such adjustments, are unknown.
Without such an adjustment, a new search for a third location would have to be made, and judging from the climate in July and August, it is clear that the tournament would be better suited in a northern city. But this search, as well as the expedition, is still going forward.
What is certain is that all nine rounds remaining in the first phase will surely be played before the national team plays the Round of 12 in September.
There's more to the points method.
If the schedule is compressed, how will the champions as well as the relegation spots be decided? Will the top four finishers of the two groups be placed in the Championship Group and the bottom four finishers of the two groups be placed in the Relegation Group like last year, with the results reset to zero and the elimination system used to determine the Championship and Relegation places? The answer is no. This year it has been confirmed that total points will be counted, meaning that the points from the first stage will be carried over to the second stage and then added to the points from the second stage to finally confirm the champion and relegated teams. However, there are some uncertainties here that are still under discussion: whether the results of the two phases will be fully added up for the overall ranking, or only the total points of the two groups will be added up for their respective rankings, and it seems that the second ranking method is now more likely.
The reason for this is that if the sum of the points of the two phases is used for the total ranking, once a team realizes that it can't enter the top four, or that the opponents it encounters after entering the top four are too strong, it might as well choose to enter the fifth place to face the middle and bottom teams, so that it can gain more points in the second phase, and once a strong team has fallen into the relegation group, the team entering the championship group can be overtaken by the difference in the total number of points. In order to prevent such a problem, it is very likely that only two groups will be ranked, the first place in the championship group will be the champion; the last two teams in the relegation group will be PK with the third and fourth places in the Central League, which means that even if the total number of points of the two phases is added up, the first place in the relegation group will have a higher total number of points than the last place in the championship group, which won't affect the overall ranking. In this way, the points of the first stage is very important. The start of the world transfer window on July 1 is just a good opportunity to make up for the strength of some of the teams that did not complete their reinforcements at the beginning of the season. The final points and ranking methodology should be finalized after the fixtures are confirmed.
