Summary of the first phase of the 2025 Chinese Super League: no longer polarized, both popular and applauded

Reporter Chen Yong reports Adjacent to the two rounds, the Super League has a bit of a feeling of ice and fire. In the 12th round, the strong teams all went crazy, Shanghai Shenhua and Chengdu Rongcheng, which were leading by the same score, won by 4 goals, and Beijing Guoan, Shanghai Port and Shandong Taishan also won by 2 goals, an unstoppable situation. But the 13th round has changed, Shanghai Port and Shandong Taishan 1-1 peace is normal, Chengdu Rongcheng and Beijing Guoan have dropped the chain, respectively in the home and away with the same 1-1 by Qingdao two teams blocked, Shanghai Shenhua stood out and led alone.

Qingdao West Coast is a midstream team, Qingdao Manatee is a relegation team, these two Qingdao teams are not the first time to stop a strong team, after Qingdao West Coast drew 3-3 at home against Shanghai Port, Qingdao Manatee drew 1-1 away against Shandong Taishan.

In fact, this also reflects a completely different situation in the new season from the past: compared with the polarization of the Chinese Super League teams in the 2024 season, there are more strong teams in the 2025 season, especially more teams in the middle of the table with stable performance, and the relegation teams cannot be underestimated.

Another significant change in the 2025 season of the Chinese Super League is that the ball market has been greatly improved, which naturally makes the Super League more intense and exciting. In terms of goals scored, he averaged 3.158 goals per game, which continued to maintain a high level. Of course, the referees of the Chinese Super League are still the focus of attention, especially in the first 8 rounds, the stampede has become the focus, but fortunately, in the recent rounds, the controversy about the stampede penalty has been greatly reduced.

In the 2024 season, Wuhan Three Towns will not be relegated until the 27th round, and before the start of the 29th round, there are still as many as 7 teams in the relegation circle when there are only the last 2 rounds left. At the level of the championship, the pattern of Shanghai's two heroes competing for hegemony was established early.

A typical feature of the new season of the Chinese Super League is that there are more teams expected to compete for the title, and at the same time, there are more teams in the middle of the table, and on the contrary, the number of teams in the relegation zone has begun to decrease. At present, the standings are the pattern of the top four: Shanghai Shenhua has 32 points, Chengdu Rongcheng has 30 points; Although Beijing Guoan and Shanghai Port only have 26 and 24 points, they have one less round, and if they win the supplementary game, the difference is not large.

In the 13th round of the 2024 season, ranked 10th, Qingdao West Coast, ranked 10th, was only 4 points higher than 16th-ranked Qingdao Manatee, and 12th-ranked Henan Club Jiuzu Dukang was only 1 point higher than Qingdao Manatee. But in the 13th round of this season, Dalian InBev Haifa, ranked 10th, was 9 points higher than Changchun Yatai, ranked 16th, and 6 points higher than Qingdao Manatee, ranked 15th.

The pattern of the Chinese Super League in the new season is currently 466 pattern: Shanghai Shenhua, Chengdu Rongcheng, Beijing Guoan and Shanghai Port belong to the championship group, Shandong Taishan gradually slipped towards the midstream group, and then Tianjin Jinmen Tiger, Yunnan Yukun, Qingdao West Coast, Zhejiang Club and Dalian InBev, whether it is club investment, fan support, or technical and tactical performance, are very stable.

Then there is the relegation circle, Meizhou Hakka, Wuhan Three Towns, Henan Club, Shenzhen Xinpeng City, Qingdao Manatee and Changchun Yatai, of which Changchun Yatai only got 5 points in 13 rounds, and there seem to be signs of early fallout. Of course, this pattern may change as the schedule progresses, but it generally does not change drastically.

The reason for this change in the two seasons is: in the 2024 season, there are still many teams in financial difficulties, which has also caused the phenomenon of the relegation group being in a big tail, but in the new season, more team investment tends to be stable, so the midstream group began to appear, Qingdao Manatee and Changchun Yatai, who are currently in the relegation zone, in fact, the core of the problem is the financial dilemma.

With the farewell of Oscar, the last big-name foreign aid of the Chinese Super League, at the end of 2024, the 2025 season of the Chinese Super League has entered the "civilian era".

With the farewell of Oscar, Shanghai Port is facing no small difficulties, as evidenced by the current ranking of 4th. In fact, this round of Shanghai Port and Shandong Taishan confrontation, compared with the FA Cup at the end of last year, the harbor is no longer advantageous, and even at a disadvantage.

Even as the leader, Shanghai Shenhua has been criticized by their own fans for "not bringing in much reinforcement", and their foreign aid value is only in the middle of the Chinese Super League. In terms of Shandong Taishan, Marcel (initial value of 50,000 euros) introduced by the second transfer last year, Madruga (600,000 euros) and Khazar (700,000 euros) introduced this season are all cheap foreign aids, and some fans said that if Khajar is a foreign aid like Gil, even if it is a healthy Judson, Shandong Taishan will get a few more points and still be in the championship group. As for Chengdu Rongcheng, the new season is the introduction of Caron from last year's relegation team Nantong Zhiyun, who is worth only 400,000 euros.

At this time, the allocation of local players is very important, and the technical and tactical system has begun to play a more supporting role: Shanghai Shenhua and Chengdu Rongcheng, the top two teams in the league, are precisely the two teams with excellent local players and the most stable technical and tactical systems; Shanghai Port is readjusting after losing Oscar, Beijing Guoan is completely reshaping the technical and tactical system, as for Shandong Taishan, it can even be said to be a failure at the technical and tactical level.

The five teams in the middle of the table were also relatively stable in terms of technical and tactical performance, and each showed a different style. At present, the team in the relegation zone, Meizhou Hakka has performed well at the beginning, but it has recently encountered a bottleneck and has lost four consecutive games; The three towns of Wuhan gradually got out of the predicament and tended to stabilize; Henan club is being reshaped after the change of coach; Shenzhen Xinpeng City has also improved recently; The Qingdao Manatees, which are in the relegation zone, have also performed well recently; At present, the most serious problem is naturally Changchun Yatai, which has not reversed the decline after the change of coach, and has lost five consecutive rounds and seven rounds without a win.

So far in the 2025 season, the total number of viewers in 101 matches (3 postponed) in 13 rounds of the Chinese Super League has been 2461478, and the average number of viewers per game has reached 24,371. In the 2024 season, there will be a total of 4663507 live viewers of all 240 games in the Chinese Super League, with an average of 19,431 people per game. In other words, the average attendance per game in the Super League this season is 25.4% higher than the average attendance per game for the whole of last year, an increase of more than a quarter, which is a huge increase.

Through the analysis of the ball market, it is not difficult to see that the two promoted polo markets are very good, especially Dalian InBev has made great contributions. So far, Dalian InBev is the first ball market in the Chinese Super League, the 11th round of the Chinese Super League, Dalian InBev home attendance of 61,185 people, following the 3rd and 10th rounds of this season, the third time to refresh the second highest attendance record in the history of the Chinese Super League, but also to continuously refresh the attendance record of Dalian Barracuda Bay Football Stadium, the previous record was 60,951 people created in the Chinese League last year.

The 10th round of the Chinese Super League this season also gave birth to the second highest ball market in the history of the Chinese Super League, with a total of 257724 attendances in this round of the Chinese Super League, with an average of 32,216 people per game. The single-round attendance record of the Chinese Super League is 265539 in the second round in 2016, with an average of 33,192 people per game. In other words, the 10th round of this year set a new 9-year high in the ball market.

The overall ball market of the Chinese Super League is expected to remain high in the next few years, and even continue to rise, at least the top two in the Chinese League this season, Chongqing Tonglianglong and Liaoning Iron Man have huge potential for the ball market.

The huge improvement of the Super League market has undoubtedly brought a great increase to the brand value of the Super League. The 2025 season is also the first season after the official establishment of the Chinese Football Federation, and the ball market has also given the Chinese Football Federation more confidence.

After 13 rounds of the Chinese Super League, a total of 319 goals were scored in 101 games, with an average of 3.158 goals per game, and in the whole of the 2024 season, the average goals per game of the Chinese Super League is 3.125 goals, in other words, the number of goals scored in two consecutive seasons has remained high, you know, the average of goals per game in the 2023 season is only 2.775 goals per game.

The referee is always the focus, and the biggest focus of the referee in the 2025 season is the decision on the stampede: there are a total of 17 Super League cases in the first 8 rounds of the Chinese Super League, of which as many as 10 are stampede cases, and 5 out of 10 cases have errors and omissions.

However, this focus has been rare since the 9th round of the Chinese Super League. There were 6 cases of the Chinese Super League from the 9th to the 11th rounds of the Chinese Super League, and there was not a single stampede case, which were 3 cases of whether a foul was committed in the penalty area or whether a penalty was awarded, 2 cases of offside and 1 case of serious foul on a barb. In the 12th and 13th rounds of the Chinese Super League, there are no obvious cases of stampede controversy.

The referee department of the Football Association has held many meetings to unify the standards, and in addition, the Chinese Super League teams have a deeper understanding of the stampede, and the players intend to control their own movements, so that the original focus has gradually ceased to be the focus. In the face of controversy, unifying ideas is always the most important.