German Regionalliga Südwest

[LondonHMFC]

China's U20s to play next term in Germany's 19-team Regionalliga Südwest (4th tier). But won't appear in the table. 

19 teams in the league, so whoever has a free week will be facing the Chinese side. 

The sides facing them will receive 15,000 euros for the two games against them, one home and one away I assume. 

 

[dogmc]

China's U20s to play next term in Germany's 19-team Regionalliga Südwest (4th tier). But won't appear in the table. 
19 teams in the league, so whoever has a free week will be facing the Chinese side. 
The sides facing them will receive 15,000 euros for the two games against them, one home and one away I assume. 
 

Will away fans be getting free travel?....

[gannonball]

Bizarre.

[Ross.]

I was wondering what the script is with regards to travel. I assume at that level, everyone will be semi pro or amateur and football will be a hobby or second job at most. Cannot see how they can expect the teams to travel to China, chances are the Chinese will build a training centre and small stadium somewhere in Germany and use that as a European training base.

[DutchBorderer]

Not entirely without precedent; Singapore has the Garena Young Lions, a club that is essentially the country's under 21 side, who compete in the professional S.League. They are joined by Albirex Niigata Singapore, which is basically Albirex Niigata Japan's junior side and Brunei DPMM, which holds all of Brunei's international players and is trained by Steve Kean. This makes for very mixed results looking at the table;

In the past, Chinese teams have also entered their junior sides into the Singaporean league as a means of exposing them to a higher level of play; now that I think about it, Malaysia also sent its under 21 national team as Harimau Muda. These teams, like Albirex, Brunei, and Young Lions now, couldn't qualify for Asian continental competitions but could win the title and cup competitions (Albirex won the community shield, cup, league cup, and league last year, Brunei won the league in 2015).

The move to actually send a Chinese team all the way over to Germany is new in how far away from home the youngsters will play, but by no means unparallelled within the context of Asian football. I wouldn't be surprised if Chinese teams playing in Europe will become a semi-regular occurrence; their league system and youth setup is dire, so moving young sides abroad is the easiest solution (the more 'difficult' one would be getting sensible about foreign player wages and investing all that money in academies).

[Ross.]

15 minutes ago, DutchBorderer said:

Not entirely without precedent; Singapore has the Garena Young Lions, a club that is essentially the country's under 21 side, who compete in the professional S.League. They are joined by Albirex Niigata Singapore, which is basically Albirex Niigata Japan's junior side and Brunei DPMM, which holds all of Brunei's international players and is trained by Steve Kean. This makes for very mixed results looking at the table;

In the past, Chinese teams have also entered their junior sides into the Singaporean league as a means of exposing them to a higher level of play; now that I think about it, Malaysia also sent its under 21 national team as Harimau Muda. These teams, like Albirex, Brunei, and Young Lions now, couldn't qualify for Asian continental competitions but could win the title and cup competitions (Albirex won the community shield, cup, league cup, and league last year, Brunei won the league in 2015).

The move to actually send a Chinese team all the way over to Germany is new in how far away from home the youngsters will play, but by no means unparallelled within the context of Asian football. I wouldn't be surprised if Chinese teams playing in Europe will become a semi-regular occurrence; their league system and youth setup is dire, so moving young sides abroad is the easiest solution (the more 'difficult' one would be getting sensible about foreign player wages and investing all that money in academies).

What do they do from a fixtures point of view? Are the home games played in China/Brunei/Japan?*

Geographically it is a lot simpler if they are close to China.

*Delete as applicable.

[Allan Jacobsen]

13 minutes ago, Ross. said:

What do they do from a fixtures point of view? Are the home games played in China/Brunei/Japan?*

Geographically it is a lot simpler if they are close to China.

*Delete as applicable.

Albirex play in Singapore, DPMM play in Brunei. DPMM also used to play in the Malaysian leagues.

[DutchBorderer]

17 minutes ago, Ross. said:

What do they do from a fixtures point of view? Are the home games played in China/Brunei/Japan?*

Geographically it is a lot simpler if they are close to China.

The S.League has a peculiar policy of forcing teams to play 'home' games at the former national stadium; teams have to play at least one 'home' tie per season there to give the league a bit of sparkle (much bigger venue). Brunei plays most of their home games in Brunei (in a 28000 seater stadium with average crowds of maybe a thousand?), and is forced to use the stadium in Singapore a bit more often; out of 16 home games, 12 or so will be in Brunei and 4 in Singapore.

Albirex Niigata Singapore has its own stadium in Singapore and would be mad to play in Japan; there's a decently sized local community of expatriates that shows up in reasonable numbers, and the squad would be second fiddle to their parent team if playing in Niigata.

On a final note, teams from across the ASEAN region are invited to compete in the Singapore Cup; a Thai team won it in 2010, a team from the Philippines got third place last year, and there's teams from those countries and Cambodia present this year. A complete clusterfuck, but endemic of football in the region (that is, until this decision to send a Chinese team to Germany was made).

[Enigma]

Should be playing Südost surely?

[Pie Of The Month]

1 hour ago, Ross. said:

I was wondering what the script is with regards to travel. I assume at that level, everyone will be semi pro or amateur and football will be a hobby or second job at most. Cannot see how they can expect the teams to travel to China, chances are the Chinese will build a training centre and small stadium somewhere in Germany and use that as a European training base.

Both games will be home games for the German team.

[Ross.]

2 minutes ago, Pie Of The Month said:

Both games will be home games for the German team.

That will be shite for the Chinese team but I guess they will just get their heads down and get on with it. They're a great bunch of lads after all....

[Torpar]

51 minutes ago, Enigma said:

Should be playing Südost surely?

That would mean playing in the 6th tier, the Nordost or Bavarian league would be closer to China though

[lanky_ffc]

2 hours ago, DutchBorderer said:

(the more 'difficult' one would be getting sensible about foreign player wages and investing all that money in academies).

The CSL has just introduced a 'tax' on transfer fees for foreign players which means they have to invest an equal amount in their youth set-up.

[partick_twinny]

I live in Southwest Germany but nowhere near any of the teams at this level (or above). Might travel to a game against them just to see how it works out.

[7-2]

They're apparently going to be based in Heidelberg. I suppose if you're a young Chinese sportsperson being taken away from your home to an intense training camp it won't make much difference if it's in China or Germany as you aren't going to be popping back to mummy's for a long weekend very often. 

[The Nightfly]

I was wondering what the script is with regards to travel. I assume at that level, everyone will be semi pro or amateur and football will be a hobby or second job at most. Cannot see how they can expect the teams to travel to China, chances are the Chinese will build a training centre and small stadium somewhere in Germany and use that as a European training base.

Surely the Chinese would be playing every match in Germany. 2 matches at each teams' stadium.

[HibeeJibee]

I suppose this is a bit like a higher-quality Edusport Academy but without them playing any home games .

Playing "hors concours" has a very slight previous history in Germany. After WWII the Saarbrucken club played in the French lower levels that way, as Saarland was a separate state for a while before joining (West) Germany and the Saarland Ehrenliga was of course pretty low quality... It only lasted 1 season and thereafter in order to get some quality games and decent crowds they established the Saarlandpokal against visiting foreign teams, which Neunkirchen joined the following season.

[shuggz]

The had better not beat my adopted German team,Koblenz.Visited many times with work over 20 years ago,and they've been s**t ever  since.

[Eednud]

I suppose this is a bit like a higher-quality Edusport Academy but without them playing any home games .

Playing "hors concours" has a very slight previous history in Germany. After WWII the Saarbrucken club played in the French lower levels that way, as Saarland was a separate state for a while before joining (West) Germany and the Saarland Ehrenliga was of course pretty low quality... It only lasted 1 season and thereafter in order to get some quality games and decent crowds they established the Saarlandpokal against visiting foreign teams, which Neunkirchen joined the following season.

Saarland were in the same qualifying group as West Germany for the 1954 World Cup.

[HibeeJibee]

Not only that but they won away to Norway and drew at home - meaning that if they'd beaten West Germany at home in the last game it would have gone to a playoff. Sadly they lost.

Saarbrucken also entered the inaugural European Cup. They were allocated to play AC Milan and won 4-3 in the San Siro. In the return leg they fell behind to an early goal - but were back on level terms before HT. Unfortunately AC Milan levelled the tie up at 5-5 with 15mins left, scored twice more and progressed 7-5 on aggregate.