2021 has arrived, and the world sports arena, which has been affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic for a year, can return to normal in 2021? It is still unknown.
Due to the impact of the epidemic, many important international competitions have been postponed to 2021. Therefore, the Tokyo Olympics, the European Cup, the America’s Cup, the 2020 Club World Cup finals, the Chengdu Universiade, the Shaanxi National Games, the Shantou Asian Youth Games and many other competitions are rarely held in 2021. The original “Sports Youth” has now become “Sports New Year”!
As far as Chinese football is concerned, this year will face multi-line challenges such as the top 40 Asian National Football World Cup qualifiers, the Chinese Super League, the AFC Champions League, the Tokyo Olympic Women’s Football qualifiers, and the National Games football match. With the global epidemic still not stable, where will Chinese football in 2021 go?
Chinese Super League beware of off-court factors “resurgence”
Guangzhou fully bid to host the 2021 Super League
Starting in 2021, the Chinese Football Association will devolve the operating rights of the three-level professional leagues to the “professional league council” (the so-called “professional league”). At present, the organization has set up a “preparatory group” in Beijing. The various work teams responsible for league operations under the Chinese Football Association have been integrated into the “preparatory group”. The preparations for this year’s professional league are proceeding in an orderly manner. .
According to the plan, the new season of the Super League will start in early March this year at the earliest and end in mid-November. The Chinese Football Association and the “preparatory team” will try their best to ensure that the Super League will play 30 rounds. The Football Association Cup will continue to be retained, and its pre-match plans will be concentrated in August and September, and the final will be held in December.
The Super League in the new season currently tends to be divided into three stages, but the specific competition system and schedule of each stage has not yet been determined. The Chinese Football Association still tends to adopt the “conference system” model to start this year’s professional league this year. If the epidemic prevention situation in the second half of the year is stable, it is not ruled out that the host-custom system will be restored.
The Chinese Football Association has now delegated to the local football associations the notice of bidding for this year’s three-level professional league to host the competition area, and requires the local football associations to report the local cities suitable for hosting professional leagues. Judging from the weather conditions and the epidemic prevention situation, the first stage of the Chinese Super League is definitely not suitable for the North. Relatively speaking, the southern cities have more suitable conditions. Therefore, Suzhou, which has experience in hosting last year’s Super League, is undoubtedly the first choice, while the other division is more likely to be Guangzhou.
The Guangzhou Football Association has submitted to the Guangzhou Sports Bureau a plan to host the first stage of the 2021 Super League in accordance with the relevant regulations of the Chinese Football Association this week, and plans to submit the bid to the Chinese Football Association before January 6. Guangzhou fully meets the requirements of the Chinese Football Association in terms of weather, venue, reception and other objective conditions. The key lies in whether it can successfully fulfill the Chinese Football Association’s epidemic prevention requirements. It is reported that the Guangzhou Municipal Sports Bureau fully supports the Municipal Football Association’s bid for the organization and strives for all-round cooperation conditions with the Guangzhou Municipal Government.
According to the established plan of the Chinese Football Association, the Super League must expand to 18 teams in 2023. Now the “preparatory group” plans to accelerate the “expansion of the Chinese Super League” and hopes to be completed by the end of the 2021 season. The specific measure is that the 15th and 16th teams in the 2021 Super League will not be directly relegated, but will play a play-off match with the 3rd and 4th teams in this year. In other words, this year’s Super League’s downgrading quota is 0.5+0.5, and the Chinese Premier’s promotion quota is 2+0.5+0.5. Of course, this plan is still in consultation with various clubs, and it is reported that most clubs are more supportive.
In the 2021 season, under the restrictions of the two major policies of “salary limit” and “neutral name”, the sharp drop in investment will surely bring about a huge change in the entire Chinese Super League ecology. On the whole, except for a few big-name foreign players that are still in the contract period, the other newly joined foreign players in the Super League this year are basically players with lesser fame and relatively high cost performance. It is estimated that half of the teams will change coaches this year. Some clubs with high operating pressure are expected to open up to become “supermarkets” for domestic players. The overall salary of the Super League has basically returned to the level of 10 years ago. Are various “off-field factors” resurgence?
Li Tieli’s “Military Order” must qualify for the top 40
Chinese women’s football points to Tokyo Olympics
At the Haikou National Coach Conference at the end of December 2020, Chen Xuyuan of the Chinese Football Association asked Li Tie to make a “military order”: this year’s top 40 must be guaranteed to qualify, and the top 12 will strive to qualify.
In the top 40 of the 2022 World Preliminaries in the Asian region that has started in 2019, the national football team has only achieved a record of 2 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss, and is currently 8 points away from the group’s top-ranked Syrian team. The national football team wants to qualify as the group leader. It is basically hopeless, and then can only look forward to qualifying for the second team with the 4 best results. To complete the qualifying mission, you must win the final 4 games.
For Li Tie, his biggest difficulty as the national football coach has not led his team to play a formal game for a whole year. In 2020, the National Football Team has only organized four training sessions at home and abroad, during which only internal rivalries have been played against the club team. Regardless of the old and new national football players, the most lack of experience in international competitions, Li Tie’s tactical play designed for the national football team has not been truly tested.
Today, the top 40 match schedule has not yet been finalized, and there is no conclusion on whether to maintain the home and away games or to adopt the tournament system. For the time being, Li Tie can only make plans to start winter training in Haikou in late January. Generally speaking, the top 40 matches should start between April and June, and the national football team still has three hosts and one guest. It is reported that the Chinese Football Association has repeatedly emphasized to the AFC that the home stadium of the national football must be retained and it is not recommended to adopt a third-country tournament system.
As for the issue of “naturalization” that has been the focus of public opinion since last year, not all of the 7 domestic players who have been qualified for naturalization will appear in the Hainan winter training, and will not be selected for the top 40 team at the same time. The issue of “naturalization of Teixeira” that has attracted much attention from domestic and foreign media before, if there are no accidents, will be “aborted” due to the inability to pay Teixeira’s high salary. How to improve the attack power of the national football team in the future, Li Tie will deal with it practically.
In addition, the Chinese women’s football team will also set foot on the Tokyo Olympic Games women’s football preliminaries. According to the plan, on February 19th and 24th, the Chinese women’s football team will play two games against the Korean women’s football team. The winner of the two rounds will receive tickets to the Tokyo Olympic Games women’s football game. In the Olympic preliminaries in the first half of 2020, the Chinese women’s football team affected by the epidemic gave up their home qualifications and went to Australia to compete. In the absence of many main players, isolation ended the day before the first match and other extreme disadvantages, the Chinese women’s football team still achieved a record of 2 wins and 1 draw, and qualified for the Olympic preliminaries as the second group in the group. In the new year, whether the women’s football girls can successfully break into the Olympic arena again, let us wait and see.
National Games men’s football resumes U-20 group
Where will China’s youth training make breakthroughs?
Currently, the Chinese Football Association has three junior national teams under the umbrella of the U-21 National Youth (1999 age group), U19 National Youth (2001 age group), and U16 National Youth (2004 age group). Their development prospects and goals Each is different.
The U-21 National Youth Team is led by the Serbian head coach and former A-A Dalian Shide star Yankovic. The players have basically appeared in the Super League, but there are few who can really shine. The focus of U-21 National Youth this year is to participate in the 5th U-23 Asian Cup qualifier in October, with the goal of reaching the finals. The long-term goal of this team is the Hangzhou Asian Games men’s football match in September 2022 in China.
The U-19 National Youth Team, led by Cheng Yaodong, has organized 4 training sessions in 2020 and also participated in the Chinese League Two. Cheng Yaodong believes that the tactical ability of the whole team has improved to a certain extent after the training of the second, and hopes to continue to participate in the second this year. But for domestic players of this age, the more important game this year is the 14th Shaanxi National Games.
The 2021 Shaanxi National Games Men’s Football Competition, like the previous National Games, initially established two age groups, U-20 (2001 age group) and U18 (2003 age group). However, since 2018, there has been widespread rumors that the State General Administration of Sports will remove the U-20 group of men’s football matches, so local sports bureaus have massively removed the U-20 men’s football system. In the second half of 2019, the State Sports General Administration officially issued a notice stating that only U-17 (2004 age group) and U-18 groups will be established for the 2021 National Games. Among them, the U-18 group can join 4 U-20 groups. Of overage players. But just in December 2020, the State Sports General Administration adjusted the setting of individual competitions again. Among them, the men’s football requested that the U-17 group be restored to the U-20 group because the U-20 players are of the right age to participate in the 2024 Olympic Games. Players should have more opportunities to exercise. As a result, sports bureaus across the country hurriedly reorganized the U-20 team. After all, the only places that have maintained the U-20 organizational team in recent years are Evergrande, R&F, Luneng, and Greentown.
There is always a wrong voice from the outside world that it is meaningless to hold the National Games again. In fact, in the field of competitive sports, the National Games will have a very important leverage in the cultivation of elite reserve talents in various events. As far as the Chinese football youth training is concerned, the National Games is the highest stage to test the overall strength of all regions, and it is also the most effective means to ensure the number of youth training players of a certain age. Now that the Shaanxi National Games resumes the men’s U-20 group, players in the 2001 age group will regain the opportunity to prove themselves.
As for the U-16 national junior team, they should have participated in the Bahrainia minor tournament in September 2020 to compete for the qualification for the Peru World Junior minor tournament in March 2021. The U-16 national team has returned to the AFC after a lapse of 6 years. Originally, the Spanish coach Antonio and team leader Shao Jiayi were very energetic and tried to show off in the AFC. However, due to the impact of the epidemic, the September Asian Games was postponed to February 2021. But now, FIFA has cancelled the Peru World Minor Championship, so the Asian Minor Championship will inevitably be cancelled. The U-16 national team will collectively face the fate of dissolution. So, a group of young national team players headed by Luneng He Xiaoke and Evergrande Football School Zeng Yaozhang may only be able to “play big with small” to participate in the U-18 National Games this year, and strive to become first-team professional players in the future. .
Now that the U-23 policy of professional leagues continues to be fermented, campus football is in the ascendant, social youth training is blooming, the call for integration of sports and education is high, and new elements such as “football entrance examination” are stimulated. Can Chinese football youth training achieve new breakthroughs in 2021?
According to “Guangzhou Daily”
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