John Aloisi’s Chengdu Lose Title as It’s Hailed Soccer’s Worst
Chengdu Rongcheng, coached by Australian John Aloisi, lost the Chinese Super League title on the final day after leading by 14 points with five games left. Dalian Yingbo won it on the head-to-head tiebreaker. Fans confronted players at the team hotel.
Chengdu Rongcheng, coached by Australian John Aloisi, lost the Chinese Super League title on the final day of the season after leading the table by 14 points with five matches left. It’s hailed soccer’s worst title choke, and Aloisi is its face.
They needed two points from those five games. They got one.
A final day that slipped away
Chengdu led the league for the entire season, right up to the last round. A draw away to Shandong Taishan would have been enough. Instead they fell 2-0 behind after 23 minutes.
They fought back to 3-2 and needed one more goal in the final 10 minutes plus stoppage time. It never came.
Elsewhere, Dalian Yingbo beat Tianjin Jinmen Tiger 3-1 in heavy snow and moved to the top. Both clubs finished on 52 points, but head-to-head record is the league’s first tiebreaker, not goal difference. That left Chengdu second.
The earlier blow
The damage was done a round earlier. Chengdu hosted Dalian Yingbo and lost 1-0 after VAR ruled out a 90th-minute equalizer for offside. That goal would have clinched the title on the spot.
Chengdu also had a head start. Nine of the league’s 16 teams were handed deductions of between five and 10 points as part of sweeping anti-corruption investigations. No team from western China has ever won the title.
Fury at the hotel
More than 4,000 Chengdu supporters traveled to Shandong. After the match, they gathered in the lobby of the team hotel and vented their anger at players as they arrived. Security stepped in to stop the verbal exchanges turning physical.
Forty minutes after the final whistle, the club issued a statement apologizing for the result and asking fans to stay with the team. Some sections of the Chinese media took the speed of that statement as a sign of mental fragility.
One reporter called Chengdu a worldwide laughing stock. Other journalists blamed the players, club executives for long-running recruitment problems and Aloisi for failing to stop the slide.
Aloisi’s position
Aloisi took over at the start of this year. It is his first coaching job outside Australia. As a player, he scored the penalty that sent the Socceroos to their first FIFA World Cup in 32 years.
Chengdu fans had been calling for his sacking for weeks. Asked after the match whether he would step down, Aloisi said it was not the time to have that discussion.
“We are indeed very disappointed not to have won the championship,” he said. “We are in a very despairing state.”
