If there is no accident, this year's AFC Champions League, the Chinese Super League BIG4 will still send youth teams to participate.
The reason is not difficult to understand, first of all, even if the full force goes to participate in the AFC Champions League, it may not be able to achieve the desired results, which is easy to guess. On the contrary, these four Super Giants, if they exert their strength in the domestic league, are likely to get satisfactory results. Another point is that when Beijing Guoan participated in the AFC Champions League last year, although it successfully finished the game, some players unfortunately contracted the epidemic, resulting in twists and turns on the way back to China.
Therefore, participating in the AFC Champions League, not only can not get the ideal results, but also afraid of infection with the epidemic, delaying the trip back to China, and at the same time delaying the results of the domestic league. In addition, the Football Association does not have any preferential support policies, so it is already very good to send a second team or a youth team to participate.
But it's the highest tournament in Asia, at club level. It is the same as the national team, it is a matter of winning glory for the country. But our Chinese Football Association, for this event, obviously does not invest much more than the national team.
The AFC is committed to making the AFC Champions League more professional and has a greater brand influence, so it has been constantly reforming. In the past two years, the continuous new measures have made the event closer to the UEFA Champions League, and the ornamentation, organization and confrontation of the event have been greatly improved.
In order to increase the technical content and competitive level, the AFC changed the competition cycle and the number of foreign aid applicants. The previous year was changed to a cross-year system, that is, the time of the competition was changed to September of the same year to May of the following year. In addition, the number of applicants for foreign aid is changed to 5+1, and the number of foreign aid increases, and the ornamental and competitive level will also increase.
But our Chinese Super League did the opposite. The number of foreign aid players stipulated by the Football Association has gradually decreased, although it is to increase the playing time of domestic players, but the decline in the level of competition is already an indisputable fact. At this point, our clubs are on the Asian stage again, the number of foreign aid is not dominant, the level of domestic players is poor, how can we achieve good results?
In addition, the AFC has an even more important change! The number of teams participating in the AFC Champions League in various associations often depends on his technical score in the AFC. If an association's score is relatively high, then the more participating teams will be assigned accordingly. For example, around 2020, the Chinese Super League under our Chinese Football Association has always been ranked in the top few, or even the first, so the number of places we have been assigned is 4 (3+1).
How this technical score is calculated is based on the performance of the participating teams and is comprehensively judged. That is to say, as long as the team sent by an association performs better, the corresponding technical points will be more. Because the teams we played in the AFC Champions League before have been relatively stable, we have accumulated a lot of technical points and the quota is also stable.
But this technology is divided into algorithms, and the AFC will make major changes to implement new algorithms. The technical points are still used as a reference for the number of participating teams, but the calculation cycle has been shortened, mainly based on the performance of the AFC Champions League in the previous season. Such an algorithm, for the Chinese Super League, is simply a thunderbolt on a sunny day.
If there is no epidemic, then there is no problem with this calculation. However, due to the epidemic and various risks, the teams participating in the AFC Champions League are not full attacks, just youth teams. Then their record is certainly not ideal, just like Beijing Guoan and Guangzhou, which have created a series of shameful records in a row. Then such a performance will definitely not get a few points, which will directly affect the allocation of places in the AFC Champions League next season.
Although it has not yet been implemented this season, this method will be officially put into use next year. That is to say, if our BIG4 this year still sends a second team or a youth team to participate, then it is difficult to avoid continuing to create worse records, so the technical points will certainly not be too much, if a game is not won, then the technical points will be even more miserable. In the end, the technical points of our Chinese Super League are likely to fall directly out of the top 24, and a place in the AFC Champions League will not be allocated, which will produce an even more humiliating record: the Chinese Super League will completely fail to qualify for the 2024-2025 AFC Champions League.
Does such a result require our Football Association and even the General Administration of Sports to seriously consider it? The national football team has already failed, do our clubs also have to be helpless in Asia?
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