This year's AFC Champions League is about to kick off, with Shanghai Port and Zhejiang playing first in the AFC Champions League play-offs, taking on two of the Thai Premier League's powerhouses, Pathum United and Thai Port, respectively.
Shanghai Port is the favourites to win the Chinese Super League this season, and judging by their strength and pre-match ambition, winning at home is a sure thing. If Shanghai Port is so powerful, it can't even enter the play-offs, and it will definitely be reprimanded by fans!
As the traditional powerhouse of the Thai Super League, Pathum United has not played well in the league this season, although it has only played two rounds, but it ended in a draw, temporarily ranking eighth in the table. Although he did not play his due strength in the league, he showed strong confidence in the face of the prospect of the AFC Champions League. In the interview, he said that the team will definitely enter the main tournament and strive to qualify from the group.
It seems to be self-encouragement, but in fact, everyone really should not underestimate Pathum United.
In preparation for the AFC Champions League play-offs with Shanghai Port, Batum United arrived in Shanghai last week and started training early. In the lineup, the number of foreign helpers reached 7, as long as they were generals without injuries, all of them came to Shanghai with the team.
The two major foreign aid heroes on the main back line, Cardoso and Kelich, take into account strength and experience; There is Sergeyev on the front (isn't it very familiar?) is the Uzbek who used to play for Beijing Guoan), and it is also worth noting that Baton United Sea introduced the so-called "Thai Messi" Songkrasin, a small man with very flexible foot skills, when the national football team played against the Thai team, it did not suffer a loss. The overall strength has been significantly improved.
According to past experience, Chinese Super League teams face Southeast Asian teams, it seems that high altitude will always be our advantage. However, this time Batum United has two generals sitting in the back line, and Shanghai Port still wants to take advantage of this method, I am afraid it will not be easy. Javier needs to be prepared for second, third and even more tactics in case the situation cannot be opened at critical moments.
For Shanghai Port, the first goal is definitely to win the opponent and advance to the group stage. However, although Shanghai Port does have certain advantages in terms of paper strength, the team also has two major unstable factors, resulting in the game full of uncertainty.
First of all, the intensive schedule of domestic leagues, Javier did not rotate, resulting in most of the main players being physically overdrawn. This is equivalent to the danger of invisibility, which can erupt at any time. In particular, Oscar and Wu Lei are almost the starters, and even if the team is leading by a large margin, Javier still does not want to replace them. Originally facing Meizhou Hakka last time, Javier wanted to seal the victory at half time and let the main team rest, but the whole process backfired, everyone knows.
Second, Javier's use of foreign aid is not flexible. Of course, we can say that Javier is not superstitious about the role of foreign aid, and fully believes that domestic players are stronger. However, in the Chinese Super League, there are almost no domestic players who want to truly surpass foreign aid. It can only be said that sometimes the state of foreign aid is not optimal.
The AFC Champions League and the Chinese Super League are completely different in the use of foreign aid, and the AFC Champions League stipulates that the number of foreign aid playing is 5+1, in other words, a team can let 6 foreign helpers appear! You must know that Pathum United has 7 foreign aides, and it is very likely that all of them will appear. Looking at Javier's previous employment habits, in addition to Oscar, other foreign players are not stable, even Vargas. If it is suppressed by the Baton United in foreign aid, then Shanghai Port is likely to be passive at the beginning.
At the pre-match press conference, Pathum United also said that the team's strength may not be as strong as Shanghai Port, but the whole team has prepared for difficulties, and made a comprehensive analysis of Shanghai Port's tactics and player characteristics, I believe the team will achieve a good result. In addition, everyone is saying that Shanghai Port's home stadium is the Devil's Stadium, which is no harm to the team, because the team enjoys this atmosphere, the more fans the more active the scene, the more excited everyone will be to play. We used to play in Japan where the atmosphere was equally frenetic at home and the fans, but we got through and sometimes home advantage is our advantage.
Finally, for Shanghai Port, in order to win this crucial matchup, in addition to relaxation and technical tactics, the most important point is to get the first goal as soon as possible, do not delay, which is crucial for SIPG playing at home. Breaking the opponent's goal as soon as possible will make everyone play more calmly, otherwise once in the second half of the game, there is still no way to find a way to break the goal, the mentality will be impatient, and the mistakes will increase, to know the characteristics of the Thai Super League team, but it is very powerful, cold can not help them play a counterattack, may be fatal.
There is also a disgraceful history that reminds Shanghai Port not to be careless: since the Chinese Super League teams participated in the AFC Champions League, only two teams have been eliminated in the play-offs, and Shanghai Port is one of them.