Yanjing Beer 2021 Chinese Football Association Cup Final will be held at 19:30 on January 9, 2022 at Chengdu Phoenix Mountain Sports Park Professional Football Stadium, Shandong Taishan, who has just won the 2021 Chinese Super League, will face Shanghai Harbor in the final, and the FA Cup final will adopt a winner-loss format. Players from both teams said in interviews before the game that they hope to play the final battle of the whole year and win the FA Cup.
The Tarzan team went all out to fight for the double
Shandong Taishan's U23 player Guo Tianyu has performed very prominently in this year's league, scoring 10 goals as of the 21st round of the Chinese Super League, and the 22-year-old Guo Tianyu has already secured the team's main striker position. However, due to the training and competition of the previous national team to participate in the round of 12, Guo Tianyu also missed the game before the final of the FA Cup, so Guo Tianyu is naturally full of expectations for the upcoming FA Cup final.
Talking about what kind of expectations are now for the final FA Cup final, and whether the mood of the Taishan players for the double title is still as urgent as facing the league championship, Guo Tianyu said in a very firm tone: For the FA Cup final, or for the FA Cup champion, everyone on the team is very eager to win this championship and hope to become this year's double champion. Now everyone is adjusting their form, just to prepare for the final.
So, how the team adjusted after winning the league championship, and whether the mentality would be relaxed because of the early three rounds of the championship. In this regard, Guo Tianyu admitted: Because of winning the championship three rounds in advance, head coach Hao Wei let the players who played relatively more games before adjust slightly, so that people who had less playing time before played more games played more games, but we will not relax our mentality, because the honor of the double champion is definitely more important than just one league championship, so everyone is making full preparations for the championship.
However, for the Taishan team, it is not an easy task to win the championship as desired, because the final opponent Shanghai Haigang is also the strongest competitor in the Chinese Super League. When talking about how much difficulty this opponent will create for the Taishan team, Guo Tianyu believes that this year's Shandong Taishan team can win the championship, not only because it has defeated Shanghai Harbor in the championship group, but more importantly, it has won three points on many opponents, and the competitors on the road to winning the league are not only Shanghai Harbor, many teams have their own advantages and characteristics. Therefore, for the Taishan team, facing the FA Cup final, they still have to make their own preparations and play their best level. Now everyone has regarded the final of the FA Cup as the most important game of the year, trying to win the opponent.
Talking about which player of the Harbor team is the most difficult to defend, is the Taishan team needs to focus on the defense, Xiao Guo said without hesitation: That must be oscar, we will definitely limit his play. In fact, now both teams know each other very well, there is no secret, many players from both teams are very good friends in private, they also congratulate us on winning the league championship, and now both sides will definitely be ready to prepare for the game on January 9.
It is worth mentioning that Guo Tianyu has a very memorable fate with the FA Cup. In the fourth round of the 2016 FA Cup, Shandong Luneng played away to Shanghai Shenhua, and the 17-year-old Guo Tianyu came off the bench, which was Guo Tianyu's debut for Taishan, and the excellent performance of that game made the outside world remember this young high school striker. In 2020, Guo Tianyu won the first FA Cup trophy of his career with the team, and this year Guo Tianyu is likely to attack the FA Cup champion again as the main force of the team.
Finally, when it comes to what he expects from his performance in the final, Guo Tianyu said bluntly: I believe that no matter who plays in our team, I hope that every player who can play will have a good performance, and everyone can have a full score. Our determination is to win the FA Cup through everyone's efforts and strive for the best possible end to the 2021 season.
The Harbors didn't want to miss the championship this time
This is the second time that Shanghai Harbor has reached the final of the FA Cup, and four years ago, they were very close to the FA Cup winner, and in the Shanghai derby in that FA Cup showdown, both teams won at their home stadiums, but unfortunately, Harbor lost the FA Cup winner because of the lack of away goals. This time, once again reaching the final of the FA Cup, in a fixed-win situation, the well-prepared Harbour team does not want to miss the FA Cup trophy again.
On the first day of the new year, Shanghai Harbor and Shandong Taishan played the second leg of the league, and both teams carried out some personnel rotation. Harbor, behind the start, scored two goals in a row and almost saw hope of winning the NewCore league title, but unfortunately was equalized by the opponent at the last minute. Talking about this game, Shanghai Harbor captain Wang Shenchao said in an interview: "This game with Taishan team has a little regret, the young players of our team performed very well, everyone worked very hard in the game, and overtook the score in the case of falling behind, although it was a pity that the opponent equalized in the last minute, but from the process and content of the whole game, it achieved the effect we wanted.
For the Harbor team, the most important game now is the FA Cup final on January 9, when talking about whether this game has a feeling of backwater battle, Wang Shenchao admitted frankly: This is the second time we have reached the final of the FA Cup, the last time we were a little bit away from the championship trophy, this time is definitely the best opportunity to impact the championship again, it should be said that this year everyone is very hard, very hard, this time everyone is gritting their teeth and going all out to play this game.
After Tarzan won the title three rounds in advance, the next two games were not won, will there be some relaxation in the opponent's mentality, and will this be a good point for the Harbor team? In the face of this problem, Wang Shenchao believes that perhaps the Taishan team has some adjustments in the league games after winning the championship, but in fact, this adjustment is more to face the FA Cup in the best state, so we must not have any light enemy thinking. On the contrary, we must also maintain the best form and believe that the final will be a very good game.
Just after the second leg of the match between the Harbor team and the Taishan team, the head coach of the harbor team Lecco congratulated the Taishan team very generously, saying that the Taishan team deserved to win this year's league championship, when asked how to look at the opponent of the Taishan team from the perspective of the players, where their advantages are, Wang Shenchao said: The Taishan team is the most neatly staffed of all the teams this year, whether it is the strength of foreign aid, or the ability of domestic players are very strong, their performance is also the most stable and comprehensive strength of all the Chinese Super Leagues this year. So they won the Chinese Super League title as well deserved.
However, compared to the league, the FA Cup final is a sure-win game, what is the key to winning this game? In this regard, Wang Shenchao frankly said: We have played two games in the league and Taishan team, we know each other very well, we know each other's playing style, the opponent will also analyze our technical and tactical characteristics, in fact, the biggest difficulty for both sides now is how to adjust the state, it depends on the on-site play, who is in better shape on the day of the final, the probability of winning will be greater.
Compared with Taishan team has won the FA Cup 6 times, the Harbor team this time is the second time to reach the final of the FA Cup, Wang Shenchao finally said: The last game of the 2017 FA Cup, that is, the game at home of the Harbor team is the most memorable one in all the FA Cup matches he has participated in in the past, although we defeated the Shenhua team in that game, but unfortunately did not lift the championship trophy, so this time I do not want to leave regrets. As a veteran of the team's backline, he hopes to help the team to defend the city gate in the final, hoping to achieve zero goals in the final. Because only the fewer goals conceded, the more chances there are to win. Because, this time, we don't want to miss this championship.
Yesterday, the Taishan team arrived in Chengdu to enter the competition area, and the harbor team will be stationed today. Looking forward to the end of Chinese football on the evening of January 9th!