Reporter Cheng Shan and special correspondent Gan Hui report At 19:35 on February 7, Shenhua and Haigang will compete for the "Super Cup" at the Kunshan Olympic Sports Center Stadium in Jiangsu, which is the opening match of the 2025 Chinese Football Professional League, the first trophy battle after the Spring of the Year of the Snake in Chinese professional football, and the first Shanghai derby in the "post-Oscar era".

For Harbour, who won both league and cup competitions last season, this day of the Super Cup will be a fresh start. Although head coach Muscat was reluctant to talk too much about the current fighting power of Harbour after the big change before the game, he still firmly and confidently stated: "We always stick to our style of play and football philosophy, no matter who is gone, who is coming. ”

In fact, as Harbour manager Muscat feels, "The new season is about to start again, but it seems like last season was not so long ago, as if it had just been played." "From the end of all the competitions last season, to the Super Cup with Shenhua on February 7, counting the holidays and the Lunar New Year, the preparation time for the new season of Harbour is indeed much shorter than before.

During this period, the whole Harbour team conducted a three-week winter training in Abu Dhabi, the big-name foreign aid left, Wu Lei is still in the recovery period, although the personnel are not organized, but from the score of several warm-up games during the winter training, the overall state of the team is still good. The best thing to be happy about is that the players have not suffered any bothersome injuries throughout the high-intensity winter training period. "Our winter training was relatively short. We were the last club to finish last year and the first to start this year, so it's important that we control the medical team, the physical performance, and we seem to be doing a good job in those areas so far. "Muscat looks like he's happy with how well he's done with the three-week plan.

However, with six players changed this season and the loss of major attacking forces such as Oscar and Vargas, the future direction of the harbor is difficult to predict. But what is certain is that the 2025 season will continue to be an attacking style of play, and Muscat is very adamant about this: "Our requirements and philosophy of technical and tactical play will not change, whether there are players leaving or new players coming. Our new journey is about to begin, and for the new players, we will also let them play our own football with the team, try to take every opportunity in attack and continue to press the opposition in defence, which is our philosophy that will not change. ”

In the forward position, the addition of new foreign signing Leonardo has also become the focus of attention, and due to the overlap between his and Gustavo's positions, the topic of how Muscat will be deployed is also talked about. Muscat did not reveal the answer to this question before the game, "The key is our own style of play, as long as the players integrate into our system, conform to the lineup, how to distribute them, and where to put them, you can make judgments, but we have to maintain our own principles and technical and tactical play, and continue to improve on this basis." ”

While the Super Cup will be the first litmus test of the new season for the Double, as Muscat said, it's too early to say a game for a season, "We just hope to win our first trophy in 2025 and get the year off to a good start." ”

Another attraction will be who will take over the captain's armband after Oscar leaves. At the pre-match press conference, the head coach brought Li Ang to participate, and in the warm-up match during the previous winter training, Li Ang was also the captain on the field. "We are currently in internal discussions and will make a formal announcement in an appropriate manner." Muscat said.

"Tomorrow's game, everyone knows it's a championship match, so the meaning is different, and the nature is not very different. Through this match, both sides have the potential to etch their names in the history of professional football in China. Moreover, when it comes to a game like a derby, the meaning is different from everyone's attention. Last year, we were in a fierce competition with Harbour for the title of the Chinese Super League. The meaning of the derby is extremely important, both for our team and for the fans. Although head coach Slutsky defined the game as "not the same meaning and different nature", he was not conservative in his hiring. At just 18 years old, Yang Haoyu may make his debut in the Super Cup.

Many fans are still relatively unfamiliar with the name Yang Haoyu, a player who has never played in the professional league, but Slutsky "does not stick to one pattern to reduce talent". In fact, during the winter training in Haikou, Yang Haoyu was reused by Slutsky. In the last warm-up game of winter training with Tianjin Jinmen Tigers, Yang Haoyu started with Teixeira, Amadou and other 5 foreign aids, but he was replaced due to injury in the first half. Fortunately, Yang Haoyu's injury was not serious, and after active treatment and recovery, he recovered from his injury in time and caught up with the Super Cup.

According to the situation during the winter training period, Slutsky usually puts Yang Haoyu in the No. 8 position, which is actually the most abundant and competitive position in the Shenhua team at present. In this position, there are not only current international players Xu Haoyang, but also former international players Gao Tianyi and Li Ke, in addition to Wang Haijian, etc., can also play this position. Slutsky once said, "It doesn't matter if he is Yang Haoyu or any other player, as long as he can perform well in training, he will win the corresponding opportunity here." ”

Another big change in Shenhua's starting lineup is the new signing Mineiro to replace Malele, who left the team at the end of his contract, "Everyone is very concerned, because there are some changes on both sides, although the changes in our team are not too big, Malele left the team, the introduction of Mineiro, everyone wants to see the integration of the new signings in the team, and also wants to see the performance of the opponent in the game, so it will be a very interesting game." ”

As Slutsky said, there have been some personnel changes for both teams in the new season. Of course, in comparison, the seaport has changed a lot. This also became the first meeting between Shenhua and Harbour in the "post-Oscar era".

"Objectively speaking, I think the strength of the two sides is five or five." Slutsky felt that the outcome of the game was unpredictable, "This game is difficult to predict, because after all, our opponent has changed a lot, the harbor team has changed three foreign players, although we have not changed much, and we have not been preparing for the game in Haikou for a long time, but we have made relatively full preparations and played a lot of teaching games, so I think we are ready for tomorrow's game." ”