Changing the coach is like changing the knife, but it is the hand holding the knife that really determines the victory.

From the 2023-year Chinese League champion to the 0-year Chinese Super League champion, and then to the quarterfinals of the AFC Champions League in 0-year, the result was at the bottom of the season at the beginning, with five rounds of no wins and relegation. This rollercoaster trajectory of fate exposes the fragility of the foundations of Chinese professional football. Unexpectedly, just five rounds of matches from the start of the Chinese Super League, a coach announced his resignation.

Wuhan Three Towns officially announced that the team's coach Martins officially stepped down. led the team in five games, and the team scored 4 draws and 0 losses, ranking at the bottom. originally thought that the Wuhan management would continue to give him a chance, but he didn't expect that after the defeat to Meizhou, the Wuhan management held a meeting to announce the decision. The last straw that broke the camel's back was not the results, but the team's coach Martins asked the Wuhan management to increase investment during the league break, which is obviously impossible for the three towns that are currently struggling to pay wages, and the two sides finally broke up.

馬丁斯的失敗本質上是金元足球遺產清算的縮影：當武漢三鎮運營資金從巔峰期年均15億驟降至3億，其仍試圖複製傳控打法的行為，猶如"戴著鐐銬跳探戈"。俱樂部高層人士透露："我們曾期待他成為中超的阿爾特塔，但最終發現他更像是另一個博阿斯。"

This tiki-taka idealist finally fell in front of the door of Chinese football realism. The strong contrast of his successor Deng Zhuoxiang's debut victory has written a brutal footnote for this 242-day coaching experiment - in the winter of the Chinese Super League, the philosophy of survival is far more realistic than the tactical concept.

The Portuguese coach never seemed to understand the peculiar ecology of Chinese football – he continued to cling to the tactical framework of the "post-Jinyuan football" period after the club's parent company suspended capital injections, resulting in a serious disconnect between the team's tactical system and the existing staffing. The new coach of the team is no stranger to everyone, and former international player Deng Zhuoxiang took over the position of coach of the team. When it comes to Deng Zhuoxiang, it is estimated that many fans will still think of the free kick against France that year. In terms of employment, Deng Zhuoxiang directly abandoned the parallel foreign aid Dharan Mendes. Whoever is in good shape uses whom, he does better than Martins.

The turmoil over the change of coach in the Three Towns of Wuhan reflects the deep pain of Chinese football: when the tide of capital recedes, clubs must learn to survive in the resource crunch. Deng Zhuoxiang's "philosophy of pragmatism" is in stark contrast to Martins's "idealistic blueprint", and this transformation is implicitly in line with the value reconstruction of the entire league - from blindly chasing big-name foreign coaches to valuing the situational adaptability of local coaches, from building stars to discovering the potential of youth training.

I believe that as long as Deng Zhuoxiang is down-to-earth, it is not a big problem to lead Wuhan to relegation. After all, there are still a lot of excellent domestic players in the team. Including Wang Jinxian, Deng Hanwen and others have been selected for the national team before. A change of coach is like a change of knife, but what really determines the outcome is always the hand holding the knife. When Wuhan Three Towns let go of the obsession of the champion, they may be able to touch the true meaning of survival. If you give three years to local young coaches, can they understand Chinese football better than foreign coaches?

When "Jinyuan Football" becomes a thing of the past, do you think the way out for small and medium-sized clubs is in youth training or commercial development?