On April 9, Beijing time, the fifth round of the 2024 Chinese Super League season kicked off, and the two matches in a week tested the coaching level and bench thickness of the head coaches of Chinese Super League clubs.
This round of focus battles has Shenhua VS Three Towns, Meizhou VS Manatee, and CCTV CCTV16 Sports Channel will broadcast Chengdu Rongcheng's home match against Zhejiang at 19:35 on April 10, and the results of these three battles will have a great impact on the league's points ranking.
There is also a strong and weak duel, CCTV5 sports channel live broadcast at 18 o'clock on the evening of April 9, Nantong Zhiyun VS Shanghai Port, "Wuqiu King" Wu Lei continues to score?
To be honest, the key matches in the 4th round of the Chinese Super League also include Taishan VS Henan, Qingdao West Coast VS Tianjin Jinmen Tigers.
At present, the ranking of the Super League points is: Shenhua 4 consecutive wins with 12 points to lead, Chengdu 3 wins and 1 loss with 9 points ranked second, harbor, Guoan are 2 wins and 2 draws with 8 points temporarily ranked third and fourth, Jinmen Tiger, Zhejiang, Cangzhou, Taishan, West Coast 5 teams with 7 points in the middle of the league, Nantong, Shenzhen with 4 points temporarily ranked 10th, 11th in the league, three towns, Yatai 2 teams with 3 points ranked 12th, 13th, and Henan, Meizhou, Manatee ranked 3 from the bottom.
It is worth noting that there is only a two-point gap between Chengdu in second place and West Coast in ninth place, and three points from a win will change from the bottom of the ranking to the top three, after all, five teams have seven points.
In fact, no one would have imagined that the 2024 season of the Chinese Super League would undergo drastic changes compared to last season.
Shenhua finished fifth in the Chinese Super League last season, beating Harbour 1-0 in the Super Cup to lift their first trophy of the 2024 season.
To be honest, no one could have imagined that after the change of coach, Shanghai Shenhua is like a different team and will usher in 4 consecutive wins in the new season.
Wu Jingui is a local coach leader, he leads the team to pursue defensive counterattacks and "1-0 doctrine", the game habit is that no matter whether the opponent is strong or weak, Wu Gui's work requirement is to score 1 goal.
For example, last season, there were 30 rounds of matches in the Chinese Super League, of which Shenhua won 1-0 games in 10 games, drew 1-1 in 7 games, and the FA Cup semifinals and finals were 1-0, Shenhua defeated Manatee and Taishan respectively, which fully demonstrated the coaching level of local coaches and the conservative thinking of not thinking about attacking and "small wealth is peace".
In the 2024 season, Shanghai Shenhua has changed coaches, and the head coach has become the Russian Slutsky, who has served as the head coach of CSKA Moscow and Kazan Ruby Club, and has also served as the head coach of the Russian national team for nearly a year. Jiang Shenglong, Gao Tianyi, Xie Pengfei and other 5 players were selected for the national team, and Slutsky was hit by the FIFA national team matchday virus, but Shenhua is still the leader of the Chinese Super League.
At 20 o'clock in the evening of April 9th, Shanghai Shenhua will usher in the second home game of the season, the opponent is Wuhan Three Towns, which won the 2022 Chinese Super League championship, ranked 7th last season, and ranked 12th after 4 rounds this season.
Slutsky has his own unique considerations for the arrangement: the main force includes Manafa, Jiang Shenglong, Zhu Chenjie, Yang Zexiang of the back line, Wu Xi and foreign aid Amadou are the main midfielders, and the key to the front court is foreign aid Luis, Teixeira, and local player Xie Pengfei, etc., these people are not absent, and there is no big problem.
Today's Three Towns, not the other Three Towns, the head coach is Spain's Ricardo Rodriguez, and the big names in the team, such as Malcom, Dai Weisen, Stanciu, etc., are no longer in the team, and now the foreign aid is Enrique, Balde, Mendes, Danilo Avoleda, etc.
Three Towns scored 6 goals in the first 4 rounds and conceded 8 goals, the attack is not strong, the defense is also weak, Enrique scored 3 goals and 2 penalties, Jiang Zhipeng, Wang Yi, Mendes 1 goal each.
The three towns of the National Olympic players have Tao Qianglong, Abrahan Khalik, Eiffelding Eskar 3 people, concentrated in the midfield, and Zhu Yue, Jin Shunkai and other 2 National Olympic players are in the back line, in Shenhua is a substitute role, after all, Slutsky prefers Jiang Shenglong, Zhu Chenjie and other active international players, relatively speaking, the strength of the three towns is more affected by the National Olympic draw.
The last 4 meetings between the two teams are Shenhua 1 win, 2 draws and 1 loss, a draw, and last season Shenhua was a 2-1, 1-1 away home draw.
Now Shenhua is gaining momentum, scoring 9 goals in 4 rounds and conceding only 1 goal, and the attack and defense are the first of the 16 teams in the Chinese Super League, with 3 goals, Luis 3 goals, Malelai, Xu Haoyang, and Jiang Shenglong 1 goal each.
The defensive shortcomings of the Three Towns are in Jiang Zhipeng, and the attack point is foreign aid Pedro Enrique, with 3 goals in 4 games, which is a severe test for the Jiang Zhu combination.
Although Jiang Shenglong scored with a header in the last round, he was slack in defense and missed the former international Tan Long, who easily scored with a header to equalize.
There is also how Amadou limits Dalan Mendes' passing in midfield, who is adept at the end of the lethal pass, and Three Towns' attack, as well as Deng Hanwen's assist and cross from the right, are quite threatening.
In fact, the number of active international players of the two teams is superior, with 5 people, of which Zhu Chenjie, Jiang Shenglong, and Xie Pengfei are more critical;
A big change in the 2024 Super League season is that a maximum of 5 foreign players can be sent per game, Slutsky has 2 games 2-0 Meizhou, 2-0 Qingdao West Coast starters are 5 foreign aids, the 3rd and 4th rounds have sent 4 foreign players to start, and Malele came on as a substitute in the last round.
At the pre-match press conference, Si Shuai said that he would fine-tune 1-2 positions to make up for the physical disadvantage, and Wu Xi started as a substitute for Malele?
Three Towns head coach Ricardo also started with 4 foreign players, central defender Park Ji-so was the defensive gate, and in the 0-1 loss in the third round, Guoan started with 5 foreign players, and the fifth person was central defender Danilo Avoleda, and in the 4th round, it became 3 foreign players.
In this round of away challenges to Shenhua, Liu Dianzuo of the Three Towns is suspended, Liu Ruofan, Balde, and Daniwo are all injured and absent, and the 3 National Olympic players are not there, and it is very suspenseful to grab 1 point in the away game.
Both teams have national football head coach Ivan to focus on, for example, Shenhua midfielder Xu Haoyang, who is seen as one of the candidates for Li Yuanyi's replacement, and the 25-year-old Ma Zhen, the substitute goalkeeper who was selected for the national team in the Jankovic era, is a more appropriate age.
What is worrying is Dai Weijun, or affected by off-field factors, the former national football midfielder hope star is relatively sluggish.
As for Wuhan Three Towns, the national football coaching team can pay attention to Wang Yi and Wumi Tijiang-Yusup, although the latter is only 20 years old, his performance in the central defender position is not panicked, steady, and has the potential of former international player Feng Xiaoting, who can be trained as the successor of the national football central defender combination "Jiang Guangtai + Zhu Chenjie".
It is expected that Shenhua will win 5 consecutive games and continue to lead the Chinese Super League.