Sports Warm Winter Creation Season
The group stage of the 2023-2024 AFC Champions League has been completed, and the top 8 in the AFC Champions League East Asia have all been produced, of which the first group is Bangkok United (Thailand), Yokohama Mariners (Japan), Kofu Wind Forest (Japan), Kawasaki Frontale (Japan), Pohang Steelers (South Korea), and the three best group runners are Jeonbuk Hyundai (South Korea), Shandong Taishan (China), Ulsan Hyundai (South Korea), while Melbourne City (Australia) and Urawa Red Diamonds (Japan) are both out, and Shandong Taishan is the only seedling in the Chinese Super League.
Looking back on the 6 rounds of the group stage of the AFC Champions League this season, the top three in the Chinese Super League, Shandong Taishan, Wuhan Three Towns, Zhejiang team against South Korean teams 4 games won 2 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss, and is not at a disadvantage, of which Shandong Taishan double kill Incheon United, Wuhan Three Towns against Pohang Steelers 1 draw and 1 loss, and against the Japanese team 6 games only 1 win, 1 draw and 4 losses, there is a certain gap, respectively, Shandong Taishan was killed by Yokohama Mariners, Wuhan Three Towns against Urawa Red Diamonds 1 draw and 1 loss, the only victory is the Zhejiang team defeated J2 Kofu Wind Forest at home, but the away side lost by a large score.
When the Chinese Super League team played against the two neighboring club teams of Japan and South Korea in the AFC Champions League, it is not difficult to see from the record that it has changed from the fear of South Korea in the past to the fear of Japan now, including at the national team level, regardless of the World Preliminaries, Olympic Preliminaries, Asian Cup, Asian Games and other major competitions, although the face of the South Korean team in the face of the record is at an overall disadvantage, but in the face of the Asian hegemon Japan team, the Chinese men's football team is basically to the point where it is difficult to find a win, I have to sigh that Japanese football has made great progress in recent years, Japanese football can enter the top 20 of the world football rankings in just a few decades, there is indeed a lot worth learning and Xi learning from us.
Compared with the success of Japan and South Korea in the field of football, the gap between Chinese football, which has been reduced to the third rate in Asia, and the gap between them is getting bigger and bigger, when all Asian countries are trying to improve their football level, we are standing still or even regressing, the fault line of players and the difficult results of youth training have caused Chinese football to be unsustainable, and the competitiveness in Asia is declining, and it is difficult to return.
Of course, after another anti-corruption sweep in football, Chinese football seems to have ushered in signs of recovery, but it still takes a long way to reach the bottom, and the new management of the Chinese Football Association headed by Song Kai can take effective measures to govern it, which will be related to the direction of Chinese football in the next few years. However, in the current situation where it is difficult for us to go out, we can only invite more people in, run our own league, and improve the competitiveness of Chinese Super League teams in the Asian arena, which is still a more critical point.
It seems that the best way to improve the level of Chinese football at this stage is to improve the level of Chinese football. If we can find a better balance between the two technical and tactical styles Xi of physical confrontation and foot passing, and go on the right path, we may still be able to play football like Japan and South Korea, of course, this requires perseverance and a long period of precipitation.
The success of Cui Kangxi and Xu Zhengyuan in the Chinese Super League, as well as Takahata's ability to coach Wuhan Three Towns this season, to Yokohama Mariners coach Muscat who is rumored to be in charge of Shanghai Port next season, as well as Zeka and Kazaishvili who have proven their foreign aid in the Japanese and Korean leagues to land in the Chinese Super League, all indicate that the connection between Chinese football and Japanese and Korean football will be closer, which invisibly has a certain positive effect on improving the level of Chinese football.
After the Chinese Super League bid farewell to the big names in Europe and the United States and returned to rationality, more pragmatic Chinese football may be able to get better development, of course, at this stage of Chinese football is still difficult to learn from the long skills to control the country, after all, the starting point of Japanese and Korean football is now much higher than ours, there is no shortcut to success, football is no exception, we only accumulate step by step in a down-to-earth manner, and gradually narrow the gap in the right direction, and Chinese football still has a long way to go from quantitative to qualitative change.