The reporter reported coldly The first AFC Champions League elite league created by the AFC ended with Jeddah nationals taking advantage of the right time and place to win the championship. Saudi football has become the biggest winner of the comprehensive "Europeanization" of the Asian elite league, relying on the dimensionality reduction advantage of at least 9 top foreign aid starters, Saudi football won four awards in the local championship, the best player, the best scorer and the best goalkeeper.

The first AFC Champions League Elite League is indeed "impressive". The three Saudi giants have relied on their "money ability" from the league stage to lead the main lineup with at least 9 foreign starters, and finally won three of the four seats in the AFC Champions League, which is unprecedented. But in such an AFC Champions League, looking at the familiar names of top foreign players in the starting list, people will suddenly think that this is the "Asian Tour" of the Champions League team.

The first Asian Elite League from the competition system, the relaxation of foreign aid restrictions to the final stage of the competition venue, can be called the AFC for Saudi Arabia "tailor-made". Winning the AFC Champions League is indeed an achievement that Saudi Arabia can show off for in urgent need of proving its strength to the world. But is the Asian championship won by the team of "11 Champions League players", is it really an achievement for Asian football to boast about?

AFC Champions League becomes Champions League "Asian Tour"

The AFC Champions League has copied the Swiss round system of the Champions League, and foreign aid has been fully liberalized, completely Europeanized. It can be said that the essence of the AFC Champions League Elite League is actually the Champions League "Asian Tour" with Asian events as the shell and the Champions League foreign aid as the core. To paraphrase the familiar language, it is "the Champions League goes to the countryside".

Taking the final between Jeddah Nationals and Kawasaki Frontale as an example, 9 of the Jeddah Nationals' starting 11 are foreign players, all of whom are from European leagues, including the Premier League, Serie A, La Liga, Portuguese Super League, and Turkish Super League. Together with Vega, Alexander, who played in the second half, and Belgian defender Dams, who did not play, a total of 12 foreign players and 11 of them are from the six major European leagues, and only Alexander is from Brazilian giants Fluminense.

In the semi-finals, Riyadh Crescent also started eight foreign players, and all 11 of their registered foreign players in this season's AFC Champions League have appeared, with only Neymar playing less than 300 minutes due to injury. Riyadh, which was unexpectedly upset by Kawasaki Frontale in the semifinals, won the first half with only 7 foreign aids, and only sent two foreign aides in a row after falling behind 1-2, and there was no time to turn the situation around in the second half.

In comparison, in last season's AFC Champions League final, both teams had at least six local players on the field, and in this season's AFC Champions League Elite League, Saudi Arabian teams have been fully "Europeanized" and unrecognizable. This has also led to other teams in Asia being forced to follow suit. Buriram United, one of the quarterfinals, played the first game against Jeddah Nationals with 9 foreign aids, and also discharged the starting lineup of 8 foreign aids, and there were 3 foreign aides in the second half, and 10 foreign aides played at the same time.

Qatari giants Sadd also have as many as 11 foreign players, and the same nine are from the European league. Dubai Prayer and Al Rayyan, who entered the 1/8 finals, both have at least 13 registered foreign aids, and Al Rayyan has as many as 15. The Malaysian giant Johor has registered as many as 18 foreign aids, not counting 4 naturalized players, but the strength of the players of these teams cannot be compared with the wealthy Saudi Arabian top three. Although Iran, Uzbekistan, and East Asia's China, Japan and South Korea maintain more than half of the local players' starting ratio, the "Europeanization trend" of Asian football at the AFC Champions League level is a foregone conclusion.

Saudi-style "Europeanization" widens the "gap between rich and poor"

Although the AFC Champions League has also had precedents for Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, China and even some Japanese clubs to hire super foreign aid, they can generally adhere to the tone of "local league and local players".

Therefore, the overall pattern of East and West Asian football in the AFC Champions League is relatively balanced. In the 1985/86 season, the AFC fully promoted the AFC Club Cup, and in 2002, the AFC Champions League was restructured, and the number of finals in the East and West Asia regions in 38 years was 41 to 37, which was roughly equal. Especially after the birth of the 2002/03 AFC Champions League, Thailand, Australia, Iran, Syria and other league teams with low investment have the opportunity to enter the AFC Champions League final or even win the championship.

However, as Saudi Arabia began to gradually increase its investment in the league, and the signing of Ronaldo in early 2023 was symbolized, the volume of Jinyuan football and the strength of foreign aid in the "Sand Banknote League" rose by one dimension, and the balance of the AFC Champions League was irreversibly tilted in Saudi Arabia.

Since 2021, the last four AFC Champions League games have been three finals for Saudi Arabian teams to win the championship twice, while the Japanese team in East Asia has entered the AFC Champions League finals for three consecutive times, but only in 2022, they defeated Riyadh Crescent, which has not yet brought in a large number of reinforcements, by one goal at home. Last year and this year, both the Yokohama Mariners and Kawasaki Frontale lost convincingly. Kawasaki Frontale coach Mori Hasebe also lamented after the game: If you want to compete with the Saudi team in the short term, you must increase investment.

The comprehensive "Europeanization" of the AFC Champions League with Saudi Arabia as the core will have a very far-reaching impact on Asian football.

On the one hand, the high bonuses in addition to competitive honors have driven the giants of major leagues to join the "arms race" of foreign aid. The $12 million championship prize is more than 6 times the J1 League championship prize! Even just getting to the last eight is tempting for most league teams in terms of income.

On the other hand, the Asian Champions League, which almost relies entirely on foreign aid from the European League, may no longer be called the "AFC Champions League", but is just a "European mercenary" team cobbled together by European balloon stars and some rookies on the Asian tour. After all, if you use the traditional "local players plus a few foreign aids" team model, you can't compete with the "Champions League team" at all.