The three problems of the Chinese Super League in the AFC Champions League to be solved: to continue to swing away from home? It's about the future of Chinese football!

Reporter Ma Dexing commented

The annual AFC Champions League 2022 group stage draw ceremony was held online at the AFC headquarters in Kuala Lumpur today (17th) afternoon. Among the four participating teams in the Chinese Super League, except for changchun Yatai team, which needs to participate in the play-offs, the opponents of the other three teams have all been finalized.

However, more fans are still more concerned about the question: Will the attitude of the top four of the Chinese Super League towards the AFC Champions League this year be "serious"? And this is probably also a question that the current top four of the Chinese Super League themselves want to know the answer to. However, the Chinese Super League "BIG 4" will also be "involuntarily" playing in the AFC Champions League this year.

According to the current environment, the Chinese Super League wants to reproduce the glory of the AFC Champions League has become an impossible task.

Home game let bid?

After the announcement of the AFC Champions League group draw, the first thing the competition department of the AFC Secretariat may have done was to issue a notice to solicit the home bids of ten groups. According to the AFC competition regulations, this year's AFC Champions League group stage is still played in a "centralized meeting system", and the time for the East Asian region has been finalized, that is, between April 14 and May 1. Each group plays a double round robin of 6 matches, ranking the group by points, and the first place in each group plus the three second places with the best results will be a total of 8 teams will participate in the subsequent knockout stages.

Under the "centralized tournament system", "having home advantage" and "not having home advantage completely" are two completely different competitive environments. Therefore, from the perspective of trying to qualify and strive for good results, of course, I hope to bid for the home field.

Moreover, according to the relevant regulations of the AFC, if all the top four of the Chinese Super League participate in the group stage, each Chinese Super League team can bid for the home stadium and also have the opportunity to obtain the right to host. Whether it's a club, a team or a fan of the club's location, they definitely want to play the AFC Champions League on their doorstep.

However, whether the top four of the Chinese Super League can bid for the home game is not the "final say" of the four clubs, nor the "final say" of the Chinese Football Association, which needs to be reported to the relevant departments for approval. Not only that, the relevant departments of the club's location also need to give sufficient support, submit relevant documents for guarantee, and report to a higher-level department for approval before the Chinese Football Association can submit a formal application report to the AFC.

Considering the current reality, the Chinese men's national football team in the impact of the World Cup ticket in the round of 12 matches, home games can not be hosted, the Chinese Super League team this year is afraid that it will continue to be able to play away, Chinese fans will not have the opportunity to watch the AFC Champions League at home for the third consecutive year, I am afraid it will be a high probability event. In fact, it is not just a matter of bidding, according to the schedule announced by the AFC, the East Asian regional play-off will be held on March 15, and Changchun Yatai, which was the fourth place in the Chinese Super League last season, should face the winner between the Australian Super League and the Philippine club at home, but can Changchun Yatai team meet the opponent at home? This is already a problem, not to mention that the Chinese Super League in different places hosts all the matches of their respective groups at the same time.

Therefore, the "home game" thing may not be thought of for the time being.

Can I play with all the main forces?

The matter of "hosting a tournament at home" can not be considered, and the top four of the Chinese Super League will of course lose favorable conditions and advantages for qualifying. However, this is not a big problem, these years of Super League away games are not a few, the real trick is: can the top four of the Chinese Super League play with the strongest lineup? The key to asking such a question lies in how to arrange the schedule of this year's Chinese Super League.

So far, when and how will the 2022 Chinese Super League season unfold? It is still unknown, because the AFC just last week finalized and issued the AFC Champions League schedule, coupled with the schedule of the national team matches, the Chinese Super League organizers still need time to study and formulate the schedule. A very real problem is that the Chinese men's national football team will play the last two rounds of the round of 12 at the end of March, and even if it has definitely not qualified for the qualification or qualified for the play-offs, the Chinese men's national football team cannot say that it will not participate. This means that after the national football team played the last round of away matches against Oman, it returned to China to accept the "14+7" isolation policy, and the end was already On April 19, and the earliest start of the 2022 Chinese Super League season can only be on April 20.

However, the AFC Champions League group stage format in the East Asian region began on April 15 and ended on May 1. The situation faced by the top four of the Chinese Super League is that after playing the round of 12 with the national team, the international players in the team can go directly from West Asia to the match and follow their respective club teams to the AFC Champions League group stage. This is a problem that can be solved in a coordinated manner in the case of an all-main force fighting.

However, if the 2022 season of the Chinese Super League does not consider the problem of club teams competing in the AFC Champions League, the Chinese Super League "does not give way" to the AFC Champions League, but is arranged to start directly in late April. This means that after the final four of the AFC Champions League have completed all the matches on May 1, they need to accept the "14+7" quarantine when they return to China. Then, the number of rounds of absent from the Chinese Super League may not be one or two rounds. Moreover, if the Chinese Super League still adopts the tournament system, even if the schedule is not as regular as in the 2021 season, the number of missed rounds is at least seven to eight rounds. This will seriously affect the performance of the top four in the Chinese Super League in the league, and it will not be conducive to these teams fighting for places in the 2023 AFC Champions League, which is obviously unfair to them. Therefore, the Chinese Super League clubs can only play as a youth army or reserve team as last year.

More importantly, because the Qatar World Cup is launched in late November, according to FIFA's requirements, the leagues of various countries and regions should be released in advance at least one month before the match, although the Chinese team has no chance of the World Cup, but there may be foreign aid in the World Cup, if the Chinese Super League is not ended before the World Cup, it will affect these Chinese Super League teams with World Cup internationals to strive for good results in the league. So, how exactly is the Chinese Super League arranged?

It can be said that the arrangement of this year's Chinese Super League schedule will directly affect or affect the attitude of the Chinese Super League "BIG 4" to this year's AFC Champions League, that is, whether the top four of the Chinese Super League will play this year's AFC Champions League with a serious attitude, or continue to "abuse the numbers".

The Chinese Super League can no longer "close the door"!

Frankly speaking, in the past two seasons (that is, the 2020 and 2021 seasons), the performance of Chinese Super League clubs in the AFC Champions League has been disappointing, especially in last year's AFC Champions League, the three-time team won only 1 draw, setting a record for the worst performance ever recorded by a Chinese club team in foreign competitions! Of course, no one blames Beijing Guoan, Guangzhou and Shanghai Seaport, after all, under the epidemic, the teams have tried their best when possible. Especially like Beijing Guoan, who has made great sacrifices for the AFC Champions League, has also paid too much.

Some people may say: "The level is so smelly, the result of sending any team to compete is the same." There may be some truth to this statement, but it is too negative. Moreover, "whether the strongest lineup can ensure that the strongest lineup can be qualified" and "whether to send the strongest lineup to fight" are two completely different levels of the problem, the former is a problem of ability and level, and the latter indicates an "attitude".

Moreover, the so-called "attitude" is not only the attitude of the club and the team itself, but also a comprehensive demonstration of the attitude of the football association to football, the AFC Champions League, the AFC, etc., which is related to the development of football in a country or region, or even the football development of the country or region, and the status of the football association in the "football diplomacy" of the country or region.

"Diplomacy is no small matter." The same is true of international exchange in football. An unknown situation is that when the AFC officially released the 2022 AFC Champions League schedule on January 13, the knockout round in the West Asia region was directly postponed to February 2023. Why does the AFC arrange this? The fundamental reason is that Qatar's "double male" THAAD team and Duhair team have already "said hello" to the AFC as early as last year, because Qatar, as the host of the World Cup, the Qatar national team will start to use long-term training methods to prepare from the second half of the year. As a result, THAAD, with 12 internationals, and Duhair, with 9 internationals, will not be able to compete in the AFC Champions League with the strongest squad, so the two teams will abandon the 2022 AFC Champions League.

You know: in the 2020 season, under the impact of the global epidemic, Qatar "helped" the AFC "big help", and under such difficult circumstances, it not only hosted the west asian region, but also hosted the east Asian region. The AFC cannot be "unappreciative", so when Qatari football encounters difficulties, the AFC cannot "ignore".

In the 2021 season, the Chinese Super League treated the AFC Champions League with an attitude of "coping with things". Assuming that the future 2022 season is still the same as the past 2021 season, leaving aside the question of whether it will affect the future AFC Champions League seats, why can Chinese football talk about its "status" in Asian football? The struggle for "status" is not just a race result and a race result. This is not alarmist, nor is it a joke, but a big problem of where you are located, the angle you stand in, and what kind of "pattern" you are in. What's more, Chinese football can't always entertain itself "behind closed doors".

So, how will this year's Top Four of the Chinese Super League face the AFC Champions League? This is a serious question!