Covid-19 has cost Hong Kong football a year it could not afford to lose
- How football bounces back from coronavirus pandemic is biggest question local game has faced in recent years
- Mixu Paatelainen’s side slip down Fifa rankings while Li Tie’s China rise despite both teams not playing for 12 months
Cast your mind back 12 months to December 18, 2019, a day that seemed unremarkable enough at the time.
At the time it seemed any historical significance would be because the House of Representatives voted in favour of impeaching US president Donald Trump.
It was the third and final game of the tournament for both sides, with Japan and South Korea having beaten both sides already. This was for bragging rights on the pitch, while the focus off it was elsewhere.
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Once again the football would be overshadowed by the theatre surrounding it, just as it is sure to be if and when international football and fans return, given everything that has happened since.
Plenty and nothing has happened. Little did anyone know at the time that the first cases of a global pandemic were being recorded and the world would change as we know it.
That game was the last that either China or Hong Kong have played. It has now been a year without football.
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Curiously, that has not meant that football has been frozen in time. No, China have somehow found their fortunes increased.
The end of year Fifa rankings were released earlier this month and China, having not played, rose one place to 75th.
That was up on the end of year ranking for 2019 and 2018, when China was the 76th best nation in the world.
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It is hardly a glowing recommendation of the time and money invested in Chinese football and it brought out the gallows humour of supporters on social media.
Commenters suggested that Li will have a long reign so long as he can ensure that his team doesn’t have to play, while others said that they should disband China’s men’s team as the result is the same whether they play or not.
Hong Kong, meanwhile, have seen their ranking drop to 143rd in the world, down from 141 at the end of both 2018 and 2019.
While the rankings deserve to be disregarded at the best of times, there is a strong case to be made for Hong Kong football going backwards over the last 12 months – and through no fault of its own.
Aside from being 12 months without Hong Kong playing, the men’s team have not trained. Their Fifa World Cup qualifiers fell quickly to the pandemic as did local football.
The Hong Kong Premier League was a victim of one of the city’s earlier waves, first suspended then moved behind closed doors then put on pause for several months.
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In the hiatus four teams took the option to pull out of the season, citing financial concerns amid the pandemic’s grip on the city.
When the season did resume it did so without those teams and a packed schedule to finish things up as quickly as possible.
Full credit to the HKFA, HKPL and the clubs as they did just that, with the title race going to the wire and the final kick of the season.
That success, though, was followed with more bad news as R&F pulled out of the league and took their seemingly bottomless pockets with them.
In the space of a few months, the city’s top flight had lost last year’s champions – Tai Po having pulled out and then chosen to drop to the First Division for this season – and it’s wealthy arrivistes.
Add to that Yuen Long following Tai Po’s lead and dropping down a division and the current season began with eight not 10 teams.
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This season is now on pause of course as the city battles the fourth wave but Hong Kong football faces battles of its own in the coming months and years.
There are fewer teams and therefore fewer opportunities for Hong Kong players. The end of R&F, and its awkward timing, mean several even went without a club this season.
A year without an international game is going to be hard to come back from.
Such competition is integral to improving the standard, while 12 months away is doubly hard to overcome when your squad is already skewed towards older players as permanent residency takes seven years to obtain.
It is almost the equivalent of everyone in Hong Kong football missing a year through injury and it will be interesting to see how football can bounce back from the last 12 months in 2021 and beyond.
Perhaps it might even be more interesting than what is happening in the stands.
