On January 4, news came out of the Beijing time zone that the relegation battle in the Chinese Super League had been settled, with Dalian Ren and Qingdao coming out on top to compete for the last ticket to the promotion playoffs. Qingdao's local media outlet, Peninsula.com, provided an in-depth analysis of the play-off, noting that despite Qingdao's position in the Super League camp, they do not have a significant advantage over Central League One rivals Zhejiang.
Looking back at the season, Qingdao suffered 11 consecutive defeats in the middle of the season, locking up the relegation spot early on, which dealt a huge blow to the team's morale. Although Qingdao rotated some young players in the match against Dalian, the injury problem was still serious. Foreigners Vukovic and Alessandrini were both injured and their appearance in the play-offs is doubtful. Radonic has left the team without authorization due to the early renewal of his contract, and the new foreign aid Badu has not yet entered the best state due to the short time he has been in the team. Qingdao's choice of foreign aid is stretched to the limit, which undoubtedly weakened their advantage in tactical arrangements.
It's worth mentioning that Zhejiang's head coach, Jiao Di, was a key figure in Qingdao Yellow Sea's run to the Super League and knows Qingdao like the back of his hand. In this reunion, Qiaodi may bring a little bit of revenge psychology. In addition, Qingdao team continuous battle, physical energy consumption is huge, facing the Zhejiang team has been resting for many days, relegation situation is not optimistic.
Despite being a Chinese Super League team, Qingdao's road to relegation doesn't appear to be smooth in front of a morale-boosting Zhejiang team, concludes Peninsula.
