The 2022 AFC Champions League East Asia group stage kicked off today. The two Chinese Super League teams, Shandong Taishan and Guangzhou, will have their first group matches tonight. As the two consecutive AFC Champions League can only send youth teams to participate, the Chinese Super League has suffered huge criticism in Asian football. This time, the goal of the two Chinese Super League teams is to “try to avoid total defeat”.
The AFC Champions League this season still adopts the competition system, and the five groups in the West Asia region have already started the war in Saudi Arabia on April 7. The East Asia main game is divided into 5 groups, concentrated in 5 places, and will start on April 15th.
Originally, Shandong Taishan, Shanghai Haigang and Guangzhou team, the top three teams of last year’s Chinese Super League, entered the main group stage as planned, and Changchun Yatai, who ranked fourth in the Chinese Super League last year, participated in the play-offs. However, affected by the epidemic, Changchun Yatai and Shanghai Haigang announced their withdrawal from the competition. In this way, only Shandong Taishan and Guangzhou are left in the AFC Champions League this season.
Since last year, the Chinese Super League clubs have sent mixed teams of “reserve team + echelon” to participate in the AFC Champions League group stage, and the main players of the first-line team have stayed in China to participate in the Chinese Super League. In the end, Beijing Guoan and Guangzhou suffered 12 defeats, 1 draw and 11 losses in the AFC Champions League group stage last season.This made the image of the Chinese Super League plummet in Asian football, and also directly affected the technical points of the Chinese Super League in the AFC.
This year, Guangzhou Football Club finally decided to send a team to the competition despite extremely difficult business operations. The lineup is still dominated by young players from the reserve team and echelon. The head coach is last year’s assistant coach Pan Yonghe. Players include 13 players with experience in the AFC Champions League last season and some players from the 2000-2003 age group newly recruited by the Evergrande Football School.
The Guangzhou team is in Group I in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. The Guangzhou team has Japan’s J-League champion Kawasaki Frontale, South Korea’s K-League runner-up Ulsan Hyundai, and Malaysia’s Super League champion Johor Bahru. At 10:00 Beijing time tonight, the Guangzhou team will play the host Johor Bahru team in the first match of the group stage.Return to Sohu, see more
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