While Chinese football is accelerating its decline, Southeast Asian teams are on the rise. In the last round of the AFC Champions League, Chinese Super League team Taishan lost 0-7 to South Korean powerhouse Daegu FC. Unexpectedly, just 3 days later, the Daegu team's big victory over Taishan was defeated by the former AFC Champions League fish belly team - Singapore's Lion City Sailors by 3 goals. Where does this put the face of the Tarzan team, and even the Chinese Super League team?
In the second round of the AFC Champions League Group F, Daegu FC faced Singaporean team Lion City Mariners. In the first round, Daegu beat Taishan 7-0, while the Lion City Mariners lost 1-4 to Urawa. In this campaign, both teams sent the strongest lineups, and the starting lineup sent by Daegu was exactly the same as in the first battle with Taishan. It should have been a game without suspense, but I didn't expect it to explode.
In the 20th minute of the first half, the Lion City team broke the ball on the left side of the quick counterattack, Song Yiyong received a cross from his teammate and headed the ball to break the goal, taking the lead in breaking the deadlock on the field. In the 70th minute of the second half, the Lions counter-attacked quickly again with a broken ball at the back, and Lopez received a cross from his teammate and calmly pushed the empty goal to extend the score to 2-0.
In the 80th minute, the Lions' left corner kick into the penalty area, Enrique flicked his head forward to score and push the ball into the bottom right corner. 3-0, the Lions sealed the win early. Falling behind by the big score, the mentality of the Daegu players completely collapsed. Hong Zhe, who scored a goal in the last game against Tarzan, deliberately stomped on the opposing player during a defense and was sent off by the referee for a red card. 0-3, Daegu broke the biggest upset in the AFC Champions League so far this season, and lost and lost.
It is worth mentioning that this is the second time in the history of a Singaporean team that it has won in the AFC Champions League. Coincidentally, the last time a Singaporean team won the AFC Champions League, it was against a Chinese Super League team. On 13 April 2020, the Singapore Armed Forces defeated Henan Jianye 2–1 in the AFC Champions League.
It has to be mentioned that in this round of the AFC Champions League, in addition to the Lion City sailors, another team, Baton United from Thailand, is also upset, 2-0 victory over South Korea's Jeonnam Tianlong, so far this season 1 win and 1 draw to remain unbeaten, currently ranked first in the group. In contrast to the frequent upsets of Southeast Asian teams, Chinese Super League teams have suffered consecutive big score losses.
It can be seen that the Chinese Super League teams, whether taishan or Evergrande, have become the weakest teams in the group, at least in the group stage of the AFC Champions League this season, they have completely become the points sending children of other teams.