The Paper's reporter Song Chengliang
Qingdao Manatee won the Chinese Second Division championship.
This scene is still one of the famous scenes of Chinese football.
On the evening of November 3, 2013, in the last round of the Chinese Super League, Beijing Workers Stadium, Zhang Xizhe assisted Ge Long to score the only goal of the game, and Guoan defeated Qingdao Zhongneng 1-0 to send the away team to the Chinese League One. After the game, Qingdao team boss Qiao Weiguang cried bitterly on the bench, and many players fell to their knees on the turf, unwilling to get up for a long time...
In the early years of golden dollar football, Qingdao Zhongneng, who was unable to carry out an arms race, bid farewell to the Chinese Super League, and they even lay dormant in the Chinese Second Division for nearly 6 years...
Now the Golden Yuan football has come to an end, as the banner of qingdao football in the past, Zhongneng is still silently sticking to it after changing its name to "Manatee" - on November 14, 2021, the 12th round of the China Second League, Qingdao Manatee won 2-0 against Xiamen Ludao with the goals of Sun Xu and Xiao Zhi, and returned to the Chinese League One 2 times in advance.
On the afternoon of the 22nd, 8 days later, the Manateees had more of a chinese second division champion status, and the club also played the slogan of "the champion is here" - many fans in the comment area said that this slogan reminded people of a certain team.
Indeed, a super giant that used this phrase as a slogan is now in a desperate situation, and Manatee and Qingdao football have just been reborn.
Qingdao team veteran coach Yin Tiesheng.
Descend without scattering
On November 14, 2021, it has been a full 1856 days since the team was relegated from the middle division - that was still the 2016 season, after three years of dormancy in the middle of the first division, in this era of gold dollar football reaching its peak, Qingdao Zhongneng ranked second to last in the league and downgraded from the middle division to the second division.
At this point in the story, the fate that usually awaits this club is to disband. In the past, in Chinese football, we have seen too many such scripts.
In the past two or three years, the trajectories of Liaozu, Beijing Renhe and Shanghai Shenxin have all been like this - first relegated from the Chinese Super League, then the Qualification of the Chinese First Division cannot be maintained, and finally the club no longer exists...
Statistics show that from 2016 to the present, in the five Years League A, a total of 10 teams in the same era have unfortunately been relegated, yunnan feihu, Dalian chaoyue, Shanghai Shenxin, Liaoning Hongyun and Beijing renhe have completely disappeared from the territory of Chinese professional football.
Among them, Shen Xin, Liaozu, Renhe and the most unfortunate, they have all been regular visitors to the top league - among them, the ten-time champion Liaozu has dominated Asian football; Shen Xin has also played the dark horse of the Chinese Super League and the FA Cup many times; Renhe has twice reached the TOP OF THE FA Cup and has played in the AFC Champions League many times.
But Qingdao Manatee, did not repeat the mistakes of the past, the club is still there, the team has not dispersed.
To some extent, qingdao manatee's history over the years is a bit like the Euro league Parma, Glasgow Rangers and other centuries-old giants, in the development of the development of the wind and rain, ups and downs. And once the right conditions are encountered, it will immediately spark up.
After the parma club went bankrupt, it took only a few years to return to Serie A; "Purple Lily" Fiorentina also went bankrupt in 2002, and two months later, the locals set up a new Florentine club, and a year later they spent money to buy back the name of the original club and the rights to the design of the shirt, and the Purple and Gold Army was reborn.
The same story repeats itself in The Wanderer. The financial crisis was reduced to the third division, and the return to the top league was immediately able to compete with the Celtics, and won the championship unbeaten all season under Gerrard...
Qiao Weiguang, chairman and president of Zhongneng Group.
Saion lost his horse, and he knew that it was not a blessing
Qingdao Manatee can be called the elder of China's professional football league, and its 28 years of bumpy development experience is also a true portrayal of China's professional football development.
Founded on 31 December 1993, the club is one of the founding teams of the Chinese Football Association Professional League. Less than a year after its establishment, the team won the A-B League championship and successfully advanced to the A-League.
Subsequently, the team rose and fell in the A A and A B, and in November 2002, Qingdao Manatee ushered in the highlight moment in the history of the team's development. In the two-legged match of the FA Cup final, they defeated Liaoning to win the Chinese FA Cup that season.
At the end of 2004, Zhongneng Group took over the team in an all-round way - in 2011, Qingdao Zhongneng won the 6th place in the Chinese Super League that season, creating the best record in the history of the team to participate in the top professional league.
However, in the following years, affected by the tide of golden yuan football, Qingdao's performance declined. In 2013, after losing away from Beijing, Qingdao Zhongneng was unfortunately relegated to the Central League. On October 15, 2016, the Zhongneng team "dropped twice in three years" and directly fell into the central B.
According to the statistics of the German transfer market network, when the Chinese Super League clubs spent thousands of dollars in the arms race, Qingdao Zhongneng's transfer expenditure was only 973,000 euros, ranking 41st in China. The transfer income reached 21.68 million euros, ranking 16th in all of China. With a profit of 20.7 million euros, it ranked third in All of China.
Manatees players kiss trophies.
Maybe Saion lost his horse, but although the team was relegated, it was not involved in the football money-burning storm in recent years - now it seems that living is the most important.
According to statistics, Zhongneng Group has invested more than 1.4 billion yuan in 17 years, and in the era of Golden Dollar Football, this number is not even as good as the expenses of a local tycoon club for half a year, but in Zhongneng's own view, long-term stable investment tells everyone that he is not an opportunist, and his persistence not only escaped the cold winter of Chinese football, but also became the first team in the third-tier league to win the championship in the 2021 season.
In fact, manatee can be said to have left no way back for itself this year, on May 10, 2021, Qingdao Manatee held a huge new season outing ceremony, which is defined as "inheritance, tribute, dream".
It is very rare for a Chinese B club to be able to carry out such a high-profile pre-season expedition, and Qiao Weiguang, chairman and president of Zhongneng Group, emotionally said at the scene that this year's goal is to upgrade:
"We are gathered together because of the manatee complex, football can best reflect our city, our company, we Qingdao people have a persistent, uplifting spirit, adhere to 17 years I have no regrets."
Catch the youth training first and then consider the Chinese Super League
In the eyes of many Qingdao football celebrities, manatee condenses the common complex of generations of qingdao football city.
After the team successfully rushed to the top, Qiao Weiguang said: "Rushing the first division is not our goal, returning to the top league is our ultimate goal." ”
However, Qiao Weiguang did not set a specific goal for when to return to the Chinese Super League, which is more pragmatic. In the era of Golden Dollar Football, the Chinese League A Chong Chao relies on a group of experienced veterans plus big-name foreign aid, which can certainly bring short-term success, but in the long run, it cannot achieve sustainable development.
On the contrary, only by relying on a group of their own sons and soldiers to complete the upgrade can it be possible to achieve self-sufficiency.
In the early days of the professional league, Liaozu relied on Liao Xiaohu to enter the top league after relegation, and almost completed the Kaiserslautern miracle in 1999.
Xu Genbao's East Asia also relies on youth training, and only completed the promotion after 5 years of playing in the Middle League - in the era of small business, Wu Lei, Wang Shenchao, Lu Wenjun and Yan Junling, together with cheap foreign aid, can also be in the middle and upper reaches, and after entering SIPG, the team immediately became a giant and won the league championship.
Now manatees are most proud of their own youth training, even if they have bid farewell to the top league for 8 years, Qingdao Manatee is still in accordance with the standards of the Chinese Super League to form an echelon and develop youth training.
Since 2011, Manatee Youth Training has begun to lay out on campus, and once formed cooperative relations with more than 120 schools in Qingdao, and more than 40 youth coaches built the foundation, including Jiao Chunben, Cai Jun, Xu Xiang and many other former professional players.
Qiao Weiguang insisted on investing in football for 17 years.
Not only that, the club also has 5 foreign coaches, of which the foreign youth director Dragan is a Serb, who has coached in Iceland for 7 years, and has also coached in Singapore, Kuwait and other countries in Asia.
This season, the Chinese Football Association Youth Super League, U21 and U19 age groups have appeared in the Qingdao Manatee team, and they are also the only Chinese B clubs to participate in these two levels of the Youth Super League.
Interestingly, when the Qingdao Manatee echelon registered for the competition, there were also high-level clubs to ask the Football Association, why did the Chinese Second Division club echelon participate? The FA's answer was: "Have they been competing for more than ten years?" ”
This year, Manatee also has five echelons active in the national youth football league field - U16 ranked among the top sixteen in the country, and U19 achieved the top six in the country. In the past two years, More than ten people, including Wang Tao, Li Suda, Zheng Chuanhui and Xing Fu, have entered national brand teams at all levels, which is also a footnote to the benign development of the club.
In the history of Manatee, there have been times when youth training talents such as Qu Bo, Jiang Ning, Zheng Long, Liu Jian and Zou Zheng have blown up, and when the club's current children erupt again, perhaps this is the best time for Manatee to return to the Chinese Super League.
At that time, the investment in the league may not be very large, and the pressure on investors can be reduced a lot. This is a healthy football model.
Editor-in-Charge: Ascendas
Proofreader: Zhang Liangliang