Original title: FA Cup Roundup: History, written at this moment
FA Cup roundup: History, written in this moment
Xinhua News Agency reporters Gongbing, Xiao Shiyao and Chen Di
On the evening of the 9th, the Yanjing Beer 2021 Chinese Football Association Cup final was held at the newly completed Chengdu Phoenix Mountain Sports Park Professional Football Stadium. Shandong Taishan defeated Shanghai Haigang 1:0, successfully defended the title, and was crowned the season double champion, which is also the third in team history. Second double crown; coach Hao Wei won the double crown as a coach following winning the double crown as a player in 1999.
History is written at this moment.
A ride to the dust
The top three in Beijing, Shandong and Shanghai swept the first five FA Cup championships in the A-A era. Entering the era of the Chinese Super League, especially in the past four years, Beijing Guoan, Shandong Taishan (Luneng), and Shanghai Shenhua staged the “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” in the FA Cup.
However, due to the impact of the epidemic in the past two years, many clubs have reduced their investment, and a large number of foreign players have left. Taishan, which has completed the share reform, has relatively stable investment and a strong lineup of local and foreign players (with Fellaini, Moises, Sun Zhunhao, Ju Desong, Delgado has five foreign aids), becoming the most popular FA Cup champion.
This season, Guoan lost to Sichuan Jiuniu in the first round of the FA Cup, while Shenhua stopped in the semi-finals. After winning the runner-up in the Chinese Super League, Shanghai Haigang regrettably lost in the second FA Cup final trip and never qualified for the first FA Cup.
Taishan has seven FA Cup titles, far ahead of Guoan’s four and Shenhua’s three.
Football for All
In the 2021 FA Cup, the 24 teams from the Chinese Second Division will decide 6 teams to advance to the main match, and the 18 teams from the Chinese First Division will decide 9 teams to participate in the main match, plus the 2020 Chinese Champions League winning team Meizhou Meixian Qiuxiang and 16 Chinese Super League. A total of 32 teams participated in the main game. The participation of the four levels of teams once once more reflects the concept of “Football for All” in the FA Cup.
Looking back at the territory of this year’s FA Cup, from Heilongjiang in the north to Xiamen in the south; from Dandong in the east to Xinjiang in the west, there are representative teams participating. Although the FA Cup has changed from the home and away system to the competition system for two consecutive seasons, the concept of national participation and grassroots football upheld in the event has never changed.
On the day of the FA Cup final, the 2021 FA Cup “Seed Plan” came to the Primary School Affiliated to Chengdu Qingyang Experimental Middle School to further implant the concept of “Football for All” into the hearts of children. Sichuan football legend Zou Yougen, Chengdu football youth training coach Gan Yingbo, Zhang Chiming, etc. presented football, training facilities and other items to the children, and also gave them a unique training class.
In 2014, under the joint initiative of the FA Cup Organizing Committee and the title sponsor, Yanjing Beer, the FA Cup “Seed Plan” was launched, donating 100 footballs to key football schools in the home division for each game. 43,000, and more than 2,000 schools across the country have benefited from it.
A hotbed of dark horses
The FA Cup has its own unpopular attributes. “Dare to challenge, and the weak win the strong” is the characteristic of this green field. Sichuan Jiuniu, who won the “Dark Horse Award” of this FA Cup, defeated Guoan in the first round and defeated Chengdu Rongcheng, which had never been defeated in the Chinese League One, in the quarter-finals. It was not until the quarter-finals that they were eliminated by Songshan Longmen in Henan. The Henan team, who “specialized in all kinds of dissatisfaction”, was in a cold sweat.
Another China League One team, Qingdao Youth Island, knocked out the “eight crown champion” Guangzhou team in the first round. The low-level team that brought embarrassment to the Chinese Super League team is also Chengdu Rongcheng, who defeated Guangzhou City through penalty kicks in the first round.
Of course, we must see that due to factors such as the epidemic and real estate regulation, the decline in the investment of individual clubs is also the reason for some of the unpopularity.
youth storm
The FA Cup is also a stage for newcomers to “become famous with one goal”. This season, many Chinese Super League, Chinese League One and Chinese League Two teams have boldly used young players, and some of them ushered in their career debuts and scored their first goals in the FA Cup.
For the 20-year-old Liu Zhurun of the Shanghai Haigang first team, although he has already played in the Chinese Super League and the AFC Champions League, he is really remembered by everyone in the FA Cup. In the first round of the quarter-finals of the FA Cup, he scored his first goal of his career in just five minutes following coming off the bench.
Cao Jinlong of the Qiuxiang Team of Meixian County, Meizhou also engraved his name in the FA Cup. Although the striker from Guangzhou City’s youth training system was only 17 years old at the time, he was not nervous at all once morest the Chinese Super League team Henan, scoring his first career goal in the opening 9 minutes.
Some players usher in their first goals in the FA Cup, while others usher in their debuts. In the match with Qingdao Youth Island Team, Chen Zeshi of Taishan team made his professional debut, and at the age of 16 years and 239 days, he broke the record of the youngest player to play in official games of Taishan team held by Wang Yongpo, and the record of the youngest player to play in the FA Cup held by Guo Tianyu. Young player record.
The FA Cup, which has gone through 65 years, not only provides a stage for teams of different levels to compete on the same field, but also breaks through the barriers between professional and amateur, allowing young people to set out towards their dreams, and making the concept of “football for all” deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. The ill-fated Chinese football brings a different landscape.
(Public soldier Xiao Shiyao Chen Di)
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