National football training
Group confrontation
The Chinese Super League relies on foreign aid, which is the biggest feature that runs through the entire professional league development process since the professionalization of Chinese football. In the era of Golden Dollar Football, the teams in the Chinese Super League have burned the most money and competed the most fiercely, which is precisely reflected in foreign aid. In the past season, whether it is fans or industry insiders, it is generally reflected that the technical and tactical level and ornamental decline of the Chinese Super League have been reflected. The main reason for this is probably that the quality of foreign aid of each team has dropped significantly.
1
Foreign aid still influences the quality of the league
The Chinese Super League in the Jinyuan era looks prosperous and has unlimited scenery, and even can't wait to be called the "sixth league in the world", not because the technical and tactical standards, management, operation and other aspects of the Chinese Super League have been significantly improved compared with the past, but because the funds invested by each team have increased geometrically, and a large number of world-class big-name foreign aid have been introduced at any cost. Due to the low level of the Chinese Super League, it is likely that coming to play in the Chinese Super League will be far from the sight of the national team. In this regard, the Oscars, who currently play for Shanghai Harbor, are a typical representative. After this unsustainable development model encounters a funding crisis, it naturally encounters a bottleneck.
In the past season, the intensive schedule of the "centralized competition system" has affected the quality of the game, which is certainly an important reason for the decline in the tactical level of the Chinese Super League. More importantly, I am afraid that the quality of foreign aid introduced by the Teams of the Chinese Super League has decreased significantly compared with the "Golden Dollar Era". The most typical is Beijing Guoan, in the heyday there were big names such as Vieira, Bakambu, Augusto, etc., and Lucas was introduced in the early part of the 2021 season, and only Anderson Silva was left in the second stage of the competition, and in the absence of a change in the number of international players, the performance of the entire team was not satisfactory, and the reason was that the quality of foreign aid could not be the same. Guangzhou team compared to Paulinho and Talisca, and in the later stages, even the all-Chinese class, the final league results remained in third place, but the point gap between them and the champion was quite large. If you want to "break your wrist" with Shandong Taishan, you have lost your previous basic strength.
The reason why Taishan was able to win the double crown, in addition to the unremitting efforts to do a good job in youth construction over the years, it has to be said that foreign aid is also a very important factor. Fellaini, as one of the only few world-class big names in the Chinese Super League, has stepped forward many times in actual combat to save the team, and its role is quite obvious, while other teams are difficult to find more suitable foreign aid under the current epidemic. But Shandong was still able to find a way to bring in South Korea's MVP Sun Junhao for the 2020 league season, who also became the MVP of this year's Chinese Super League. Including Judsson, who was loaned for 170,000 euros in the middle of the way, and Moises's return in the later stage, the entire team's foreign aid lineup is neat, significantly higher than other competitors.
The foreign aid lineup of the harbor is also relatively neat, Oscar and Mui continue to stay in the team, and after Arnau left the team, they added Paulinho Jr., but the Croatian defender Mystrovic who was introduced at the beginning of the season was injured and missed the whole season, which had a great impact on the team; and the absence of Brazilian striker Lopez in the second stage of the game also affected the team's attacking power. In the end, the team was only runners-up in both the league and the cup.
The 2021 season is known as the first year of the "post-golden dollar era", but whether it is the era of burning money or the era of no money to burn, the Chinese Super League still seems to have no substantial change in relying on foreign aid. A reality that must be acknowledged: the relatively neat team of foreign aid has relatively better results. In addition to traditional strong teams such as Taishan, Haigang, Guangzhou and Guoan, there is also Changchun Yatai, the league's biggest "dark horse" and the promotion horse that has qualified for the AFC Champions League in the new season. The reason why they can achieve this result is also related to the fact that they have always maintained a full range of foreign aid throughout the season. In addition, Shenzhen is also a relatively neat team with a relatively neat foreign aid lineup, although it failed to qualify for the AFC Champions League, but it also achieved the best ranking in the league in recent years.
As for the relegation teams in the late league, foreign aid is not on the same page, and it directly affects the results of the game. Moreover, many clubs are purely for the sake of bringing in foreign aid. In the past, it was necessary to spend a lot of money to introduce high-level foreign aid, but in the past season, there have been many cases of having to seek loans from the Chinese League A clubs, and the quality of foreign aid can be seen. Like the Hebei team in the case of relegation worry-free, the team's foreign aid is loaned or transferred, and there has been no ideal result in the second stage of the league, which is not unrelated to the fact that only Memisevic has a single foreign aid. The Tianjin Jinmen Tigers pieced together four foreign aides before the second stage of the game, and finally relegated as desired; Qingdao team lost consecutively in the case of foreign aid unwilling to play for reasons, and Dalian tried their best to get Danielson and Larson back to the team in the final stage. These situations also illustrate a point, that is, no matter what era, the quality of foreign aid determines the fate of the teams in the Chinese Super League and determines the level of the Chinese Super League.
2
Homegrown players need to rebuild their confidence
In the past, because of the addition of a large number of high-level foreign aid, if the whole team is well run-in, the performance can be rapidly improved. By the end of 2019, the Chinese Super League can rise to the first place in Asia in the technical points ranking table of the AFC member associations, and the fundamental reason is probably the joining of world-class big names, which has significantly improved the team's performance and thus improved its points. Before that, the Chinese Super League club often came to the bottom of the group stage in the AFC Champions League and missed the qualification early. Now, the Chinese Super League clubs will face a situation of struggling to qualify. In the whole development process, the technical and tactical standards of local players in the Chinese Super League clubs have not changed substantially. If you burn money to introduce high-level foreign aid, your results will be better; when you don't have money to introduce high-level foreign aid, your achievements will immediately decline. Therefore, this is also the reason for the stark contrast between the foreign war results of the national team and the Chinese Super League clubs in the development of the "Golden Yuan Era".
Under the leadership of foreign aid, local players only play a "foil" role in actual combat, and there is a serious "sense of dependence" psychologically. But after arriving at the national team, because there is no foreign aid to dominate, the local players seem to have lost their main backbone, so they are also caught in the blindness of being overwhelmed. In fact, in last year's match between Oman and Australia in the round of 12, the performance of the national football team showed a clear upward trend, on the one hand, the team began to adapt to the high-rhythm, high-intensity, high-confrontation game of the round of 12, on the other hand, several naturalized players played at the same time, so that the national team returned to the rhythm of the Chinese Super League to compete in the AFC Champions League, driven by foreign aid, local players have relied on their hearts and can play to their fullest. Although the standard of these naturalized players is not the same as that of the heyday of the Chinese Super League club, the psychological role and impact are huge.
Therefore, how does the "post-Golden Dollar Era" Chinese Super League cope with the reality that big-name foreign aid is absent? I'm afraid the first thing is to make local players more confident. Over the years, the Chinese Super League has hired many big-name coaches, and the common perception of these foreign teachers is that Chinese players lack sufficient self-confidence, which also greatly limits the further development of local players. If you want to get rid of the foreign aid dependence that has been formed for so many years, you need to first break through the psychological barrier and rebuild the confidence of local players.
Of course, it has to be said that the problem of self-confidence is not just a problem that can be solved by people in the football circle, which has a lot to do with China's traditional culture and social environment. This is like the foreign aid hired by the Chinese Super League teams in the Golden Age, even if it is a big name, it is only a migrant worker. But in real life, many clubs in the Chinese Super League treat these sky-high foreign aid like waiting for the old man, in addition to paying super high salaries, other aspects are also doing their best to provide a full range of services; and treating local players, just like today's "unpaid tide", saying that arrears are in arrears, and not giving is not given. How does this strong contrast make local players confident and self-reliant?
Judging from the current situation, for a long time in the future, it is impossible for the Chinese Super League teams to return to the Golden Dollar Era and wantonly introduce big-name foreign aid. I am afraid that we can only rely on local players to support future leagues. In this case, clubs first need to truly respect Chinese local players, especially in specific actions, so that Chinese players can find self-confidence, become more confident, and be able to stand up at key moments, which will be the first step in the Chinese Super League and even Chinese football self-help.