Just before the AFC Champions League match is about to start, our noisy neighbor South Korea team has expressed its own views on the AFC Champions League journey of the Chinese Super League team, and the content of it is nothing more than ridiculing the Chinese Super League that the league has not yet restarted, the team has suffered a large-scale dissolution, unpaid wages, in this case, it can only send youth teams to participate in the game, and the Chinese Super League has gradually lost its status on the Asian stage, making the league even more depressed!
Just today, Guangzhou Club released an AFC Champions League theme poster with the theme of "Go all out on the field", the most eye-catching thing on the way is the two stars on the emblem of the Guangzhou team, alluding to the glory of the team's history of winning the AFC Champions League twice, while another team representing the middle team, Shandong Taishan, also released a photo of all the team members who have arrived in Thailand. I believe that if it were not for this poster, many fans may not know that this season's AFC Champions League is about to start! Due to the epidemic and the fact that the Chinese Super League cannot guarantee the start time, the original four clubs representing the Chinese Super League in the AFC Champions League, Shanghai Harbor and Changchun Yatai have announced their direct withdrawal, which also leads to the Chinese Super League only Shandong Taishan and Guangzhou two teams are still fighting on the AFC Champions League stage, but these two teams are only sending their own youth teams.
Guangzhou team currently maintains the concept of small business, the biggest purpose of their trip to the AFC Champions League is to train troops, to verify the strength of the players trained by Evergrande Football School, the largest football school in Asia! In the group stage, they were in the same group as host Johor Bahru, Japanese league supremacy Kawasaki Striker, and South Korea's strongest team, Ulsan Hyundai, which can be said to be a veritable death group. And here is not too much to repeat, the current teams are the leaders of their respective leagues, here is also hoping that Guangzhou team can forge ahead.
Among them, Shandong Taishan sent a U21 elite echelon, the head coach of the team is Yu Yuanwei, and the leader is Tang Xiaocheng. The team's big list of this expedition is basically dominated by young players, before the original, rumored that the defensive player in the big list Liu Junshuai was also unable to participate in the game for some reason, and this team also helped Zhejiang Greentown upgrade the Chinese Super League last season and scored 2 goals of the young player Yi Xianlong, the national youth regular Lin Guoyu, and lu Yongtao, who helped Qingdao Qingchun Island successfully rush to the top, it can be said that the basic strength of this team has reached the level of the Relegation Team of the Chinese League A.
In the group stage, they were in the same group as South Korea's third-place team Daegu, Japan's Emperor's Cup winner Urawa Red Diamonds and Singaporean champion Lion City Mariners. The first game was against the South Korean team Daegu FC, last season's AFC Champions League Daegu also participated as desired, and they were also in the same group as the Chinese Super League team Guoan, facing Guoan, who was also a youth army, they won 5-0 and 3-0 in two legs, which can be said to be a wake-up call for this Shandong team. The Urawa Red Diamonds are also not to be underestimated, because this team has always had the title of the killer of the Chinese Super League team, in the 2017 AFC Champions League competition, they reached the AFC Champions League final in Shanghai Harbor and Guangzhou in East Asia and won the championship all the way, although the performance in the league is not good, but the strength of this 2-time AFC Champions League champion is still not to be underestimated. Although the last opponent, the Singapore Lion City Mariners, benefited from the AFC Champions League restructuring, they still have a number of foreign players including Kim Shin-woo.
No matter how foreign media evaluate the Chinese Super League, the AFC Champions League Chinese Super League team is also the overall situation has been decided, for today's Chinese Super League teams to participate in the AFC Champions League, we can no longer maintain high requirements as in the past, perhaps just like the Chinese national team rushed into the World Cup for the first time, "scoring 1 goal, scoring a point, winning a game" is a gradual process.