China News Service, Beijing, November 8. Title: 2026 Chinese Super League Inventory: Miracles Performed and Myths Broken Under the Competitive Landscape
Author Liu Mengqing
On November 8, with the completion of all eight games in the last round, the 2026 Chinese Super League season came to an end.
Looking back at the entire season, 9 of the 16 teams started with negative points, and the league pattern was reshuffled. Chengdu Chengdu, which led the way, lost 7 championship points in a row, while Dalian Yingbo became more and more courageous and came back to the top. The three towns of Wuhan, which once created the "Myth of Kaiserslautern", were relegated together with Qingdao Hainiu. The gains and losses of this season have also become a window to observe the professional development of Chinese football.
The reshuffle pattern of this season has been previewed before the game. Before the start of the game, the Chinese Football Association punished 9 Chinese Super League teams by deducting league points and fines for the 2026 season due to "fake gambling" issues. Last season's defending champion Haigang, runner-up Shenhua and fourth-ranked Guoan were affected by point deductions and injuries. They once hovered in the middle and lower reaches of the standings before returning to the upper reaches in the second half.
As the only team among the top five last season that did not bear a "points debt", the Chengdu team had a good opportunity to compete for the championship. It occupied the top spot in the standings since the beginning of the season and continued to lead thereafter. However, this team, which led almost the whole process and was 18 points ahead of the second place at most, "dropped the chain" in the sprint stage: they lost to Jinmen Tigers, Haigang, and InBev, and lost to Taishan 2:3 in the final battle, losing all 7 championship points.
What is as eye-catching as losing the championship is the winning material that followed the Chengdu team to many away games. It can be seen that there is no room for "opening champagne at half-time" in football. Any lead will not count until the final whistle blows.
On the other hand, the champion Dalian Yingbo was still hovering in the middle and upper reaches last season. This season, it has precise recruitment and efficient tactics. It relies on quick counterattacks to frequently defeat strong teams and quickly ranks among the first group. The team showed even more bravery in the second half: in the 16th round, Chengdu had 40 points and Yingbo had only 22 points. The difference between the two teams was 18 points. Since then, InBev scored 27 points in 13 rounds, reducing the point difference to 3 points. In the final crucial match, InBev defeated Tianjin Jinmen Tigers 3:1 at home. InBev and Chenggong ended up with 52 points together, but Yingbo won the Chinese Super League championship this season by virtue of their mutual record advantage in beating Chenggong in two rounds.
It is worth mentioning that the improvement of InBev's record and the hot home stadium support each other. Dalian InBev's home stadium, Barracuda Bay Football Stadium, is the most representative home stadium in terms of attendance in the Chinese Super League this season, with an average attendance of over 60,000 people per game, and is known as the "No. 1 home stadium in Asia." In the final round of the game, Barracuda Bay Football Stadium set a new home attendance record in InBev team history with 62,619 people.
Some are happy and some are sad. This season, Qingdao Hainiu and Wuhan Three Towns will face relegation ahead of schedule. Qingdao Hainiu was relegated three rounds ahead of schedule, and Wuhan Three Towns were relegated one round ahead of schedule. You must know that Sanzhen won the championship as a newly promoted team in 2022 and created the "Kaiserslautern Myth", but fell from the championship to the Chinese First Division in 4 years.
Manatee's relegation was directly caused by the wave of injuries to foreign players. The deeper reason was that the club's economic situation was unable to support its stable development in the Chinese Super League. The dilemma of the three towns points to the long-term nature of team building: after the loss of core players, the team frequently changed coaches and the team building ideas lacked continuity. Insufficient financial support and the absence of long-term operation and construction ideas are the faults of the two relegated teams, and they also sound the alarm for other clubs.
When the suspense comes to an end, Chinese football still needs to continue to accumulate strength to move forward through solid youth training and rational operations.
