Sports Big Business No. 2855, welcome to pay attention to the leading sports industry information platform
Wen | Zhuang Tour
Sports big business reporter
0-2 defeat to Oman, the whole field 0 shots on target, the national football team ended the journey of the 12 rounds, but also for their Qatar World Cup cycle drew an unsatisfactory end.
10 matches, 1 win, 3 draws and 6 losses, ranking 5th in the group (2nd from the bottom), which is the final report card handed over by the national football team in the round of 12. In 10 round-12 matches, the national football team conceded a total of 19 goals, tied with Vietnam as the team with the most goals conceded.
This result is not surprising. At the post-match press conference, li Xiaopeng, the coach of the national football team, also said, "Although the national football team kicked something in the attack, the rhythm change was not as fast as the opponent, and the final defeat was also reasonable." Every player is a warrior. ”
On the same day, the U23 national football team, aiming to prepare for the Asian Games, lost 3-0 to the United Arab Emirates in the Dubai Cup. The simultaneous loss of the two major national teams seems to indicate a greater abyss on the road ahead of Chinese football.
A new low in national football
When asked by an Omani reporter before the game "why the national football team can't play in the World Cup", Li Xiaopeng's answer was "not strong enough". After the 0-2 defeat to Oman, Li Xiaopeng once again expressed this view: the strength is not enough, the score is reasonable.
In the earlier kick-off match between Japan and Vietnam, Vietnam once led Japan 1-0, if the match ended with this result, Vietnam will accumulate 6 points with the national football team, and even once triggered netizens' concerns about the bottom of the national football ranking.
Final table of Group B of the Asian Preliminary Round of 12
Fortunately, in the end, Japan drew 1-1 with Vietnam, which also allowed the national football team to secure the 5th position in the group before the start of the match. But even if Japan loses 0-1 to Vietnam, the result of the national football team losing 0-2 to Oman is enough to maintain the 5th ranking. In the ranking rules of the Round of 12, in the case of the same points and the same total goal difference, the total number of goals scored (the national football team has one more than Vietnam), rather than the results of each other (the national football team wins one win and one loss in the two matches of Vietnam, 3 points each, but the total number of goals scored in each other is 4-5 against Vietnam).
After Li Xiaopeng replaced Li Tie as the manager of the national football team, the national football team played 4 round of 12 matches, only relying on the previous round of penalties to draw 1-1 with Saudi Arabia, got 1 point, and the remaining 3 games were all lost. However, the "collapse" of the national football team that public opinion worried about before the last two round of 12 matches did not appear, and in the absence of key naturalized players and foreign players, the national football team "held the bottom line".
There was still criticism of Li Xiaopeng after the game, but there was also more understanding of Li Xiaopeng's voice. This also means that more people realize the weakness of The foundation of Chinese football, and the national football team has gradually come out of the strange circle of "changing the coach if the performance is poor". After the 1-3 loss to Vietnam on the night of the first night of the Chinese New Year sparked a national debate, many Chinese fans woke up to the fact that China's football roots really lagged behind most countries in Asia.
After the national football team returns home from the round of 12, Li Xiaopeng is expected to continue to lead the team, and his next goal is the 2023 local Asian Cup. In order to prepare for the Asian Cup, many places in China have built and renovated professional football stadiums, placing high hopes on the tournament. However, as the national football team has fallen into a new low in recent years, the pressure to play at home may be greater than that of the World Preliminary Round.
In the case of poor performance of national youth at all levels in recent years, the experienced old players and naturalized players left by the "Golden Yuan Super League" have gradually left the national team, or will tear open the last fig leaf of Chinese football.
Even if the entire staff of the Asian Cup next year retains the lineup of the top 12 matches, the strength of the national football team is also declining. In the absence of league status for a long time, the regression of professional players is rapid. The reconstruction of the league has once again become the only topic of concern for Chinese footballers - and the gains and losses of a single game in the round of 12 have long been of no importance to the long-term development of Chinese football.
However, the loss to Oman also caused another embarrassing consequence: through this match, Oman surpassed the national football team in the world ranking. At present, the national football team is only the tenth in the AFC, even if the next World Cup is expanded, the AFC will have up to 8.5 places, and it is not easy for the national football team to enter the World Cup of the 48 teams.
The league boom is over
For the future expectations of the national football team, the industry generally showed a very pessimistic attitude. After the dismal end of the trip of the top 12 matches of the national football team, Ma Dexing, a famous reporter of the national football team of Sports Weekly, wrote that the trough of Chinese football is far from coming. In the next 10, 20 or even 30 years, don't think about the World Cup for the time being.
In the case of a huge gap in the foundation of football, it has become increasingly difficult for the national football team to support "decency" in the face of latecomers. In the "Dubai Cup" competition, the U23 national football team lost 0-1 to the United Arab Emirates, 4-2 to Thailand, and 0-3 to the United Arab Emirates, and finally won the 4th place in the Dubai Cup.
In the Dubai Cup, Fang Hao, born in 2000, staged the "Big Four Joys" against the Thai team, becoming the biggest shining point of the U23 national football team. In the current national football team, Zhu Chenjie, who was also born in 2000, has become an excellent player in the back line, and also scored the equalizer penalty against Saudi Arabia. The growth of the new forces has given fans hope.
Fang Hao staged the "Big Four Joys"
However, in the case of the delay in the normalization of the league, the status of international and quasi-international players will still be a problem. For the few remaining Chinese professional players, the ongoing league crisis has led to an inability to improve the level, and declining Chinese football is moving deeper into the abyss.
At the beginning of March, the news that the leagues were expected to resume home and away was heartening. But with the passage of time, the hope of the Chinese Super League resuming the recent home and away games has become more and more dim. On March 29, Phoenix Sports said that if the Chinese Super League carried out the "tournament system" for the third consecutive year, the box office losses caused by it alone would be as high as about 857 million yuan. Today, when many clubs are "cutting back", this number is not small.
Phoenix Sports also talked about the sharp decline in club sponsorship revenue: "For example, the sponsorship income of Beijing Guoan in the 2021 season has dropped to less than 10 million yuan." As one of the clubs with the best commercial development in China before, Guoan's situation shows that The Chinese Super League business has long been "shocked". Recently, the news that Guangzhou Evergrande, which once carried the banner of the Chinese Super League, has carried out live broadcast sales to increase revenue is even more lamentable.
Even if the Chinese Super League can quickly restart, the heavy blows that Chinese football has suffered in the past two or three years will be difficult to recover. The Chinese Super League, which once "actively forced back" capital, is now being abandoned by capital. This not only means that the problem of wage arrears and the failure of stock reform have appeared in many places, but also means that the operation of youth training camps across the country that rely on club investment and provide upward channels is on the verge of depletion.
During the epidemic, the impact of the three professional leagues (Chinese Super League, Chinese First Division, And China Second Division) has been paid more attention by fans, but the impact of youth football events has been even greater, and a large number of competitions have been suspended, rescheduled or even cancelled, which also means that a whole generation of young people in Chinese football lack of competition exercise during the golden period of rising.
In the case that the football population is far lower than that of countries such as Vietnam, and has long been incomparable with countries such as Japan and South Korea, Chinese football has inadvertently squandered the last "reserve power". Not only the reconstruction of the national football team and the league is facing "starting from 0", but the youth training is also facing the reconstruction in all aspects. This situation is also the reason why public opinion believes that "there is no hope for Chinese football in the next 10 or 20 years".
The best viewer online
If the event is the window for professional sports to open the audience's vision and the basis for presenting the commercial form of sports, then the ability of Chinese football to provide event products in the past three years is shrinking sharply - both in terms of quantity and quality. The development of Chinese football products is also increasingly showing a trend of "niche" and "online".
As a "tournament product", the national football top 12 competition has been frequently criticized for "poor product quality" recently, but it is only the tip of the iceberg of the collapse of China's football ecosystem. Far from the mainland, taking sand as the "car", means that the most important competition product of Chinese football has been fully online for Chinese audiences.
Another major Chinese football blockbuster event, the Chinese Super League, has "entered the meta-universe" earlier and has become a game that ordinary fans can see and touch. Chinese football, which has long lacked participation and interaction, has not only completely stagnated in "product research and development", but also rapidly declined in "product experience".
Empty Chinese Super League Suzhou Division
The lack of regional and youth events means that football has not been deeply rooted in China and has not provided good opportunities for young people to participate. The league fans accumulated in the previous 28 years are losing their voices with the departure of large-scale competitions, and China's local football culture has also begun a period of decline.
In the environment of the main public opinion group mocking Chinese football, Chinese fans are being forced to "westernize in all directions" in the selection of competition products. After the "online" of the "out-of-breath" Chinese Super League, long-term direct competitors will become the five major European leagues, the World Cup, the Champions League, the Europa League, and the European Union Cup that are also "online" for Chinese fans...
For a new generation of local fans, the lack of immersive viewing experience makes it more difficult to establish a sense of identity with local teams. For old fans, the maintenance of the team's sense of identity has become weaker and weaker, full of enthusiasm, but football is getting farther and farther away from daily life.
In the final round of Oman's 2-0 victory over the national football team, about 300 "Dragon Team" fans still appeared on the scene to cheer for the national football team. At the same time, there were many fans on the social media before the game - the national football game that has locked the final ranking before the game, and the national football game that does not hold hope, kicking off at 0 o'clock at night, is it worth staying up late to watch?
Huang Jianxiang once joked that watching the national football game was to stay up late to watch the Italian team
Huang Jianxiang once joked before the round of 12 match between the national football team and Saudi Arabia that "I will still watch the national football game, but in order to stay up late to watch the Italian game." Although it is a joke, it also represents the real mentality of some fans: watching the live broadcast of the game online, for consumers, why not choose event products with a higher level of competition (product quality)?
With the "great retreat" of Chinese football products and the popularity of international football, more and more Chinese fans are becoming the "best spectators" online, and China is also becoming a dumping market for football events that lack the competitiveness of local event products. The Qatar World Cup, without a national football team, is still expected to become one of the most eye-catching events for Chinese fans. This is also the epitome of the collective tragedy of the football industry that "domestic goods are endangered and foreign goods are prevalent".
Note: The images used in this article are from the Internet