On May 15, Beijing time, the only game on the first match day of the 12th round of the Chinese Super League ended, and in the standings, Shanghai Shenhua, who won at home, became the first team to reach 30 points this season, thus relegating early. And after this game, the penultimate changed hands again.
Playing against Qingdao Manatee at home, Shenhua did not play easily. In the absence of Teixeira's injury, Shenhua's performance on the offensive end in the first half was as sluggish as the previous game against Tianjin Jinmen Tigers, with few offensive means, only eight shots on goal in the half, and only two long-range shots from Xie Pengfei and Wu Xi were threatening, and the two sides drew 0-0 at half-time.
In the second half, Shenhua's number of shots suddenly increased, but it was not until the 88th minute that Jiang Shenglong's goal from the back of the box helped the team break the deadlock, and in stoppage time, Malele's goal completely killed the game, and Shenhua finally beat Qingdao Manatee 2-0.
With this victory, Shenhua became the first team to reach 30 points this season, completing the relegation "task" 18 rounds ahead of schedule. They are still leading the standings, with six points more than SIPG and Guoan in the first round, and nine points behind Taishan.
In this round of games, the top five teams in the standings will play against the relegation team, and in the case of Shenhua taking the lead and winning, the other four teams will be pulled apart again once they are upset. In particular, the fifth-place Taishan team, sitting at home against Shenzhen Xinpeng City is a game that cannot be lost.
After holding on for nearly 90 minutes, they conceded two goals in a row at the last moment and lost the game, which was bitter for Qingdao Manatee. After losing in this round, they fell into the embarrassing situation of 4 rounds without a win, and conceded two goals at the same time, resulting in their goal difference being overtaken by Yatai, thus falling to the bottom again.
In the face of Shenhua, Manatee's tactics throughout the game were relatively appropriate. But if the team wants to be relegated, the question is how to improve the team's goal efficiency against relegation opponents. They have failed to score in as many as nine of their last 12 games, and such a goalscoring efficiency will not ensure that the team will be relegated. If you want to solve this problem completely, you may only hope that the summer window can be adjusted.