CSP Super League teams' home and away records: Shanghai Port is the most aggressive point grabber away, while newly promoted Dalian Yingbo shows a strong contrast between home and away performances.

Special contribution by Ding Xu The 2025 CSP Super League title and relegation battles are intensifying. The top four teams vie for the championship and Asian qualification, while the bottom six worry about relegation. By the end of round 22, title contenders’ home and away performances show minimal disparity, but the bottom four teams each have at least one home or away statistic placing them in the relegation zone. Notably, among all 16 teams, only Shanghai Port’s away record surpasses its home record, while the greatest home-away performance gap belongs to Dalian Yingbo Haifa.

After 22 rounds in the CSP Super League, Shanghai Port, Tianjin Jinmen Tiger, and Meizhou Hakka show considerable differences between their home records and overall rankings: Port ranks third overall with 48 points but is sixth at home with 22 points; Jinmen Tiger is seventh overall with 34 points but tenth at home with 18 points; Meizhou is thirteenth overall with 17 points and last at home with 10 points.

Besides these three teams, Shanghai Shenhua’s home record ranks lower than its overall standing. After 22 rounds, Shenhua leads the table with 25 home points, just one less than Beijing Guoan. Of course, Guoan has played 11 home games compared to Shenhua’s 10 in these rounds.

Yunnan Yukun, Henan Club, Wuhan Three Towns, and Shenzhen New Pengcheng have home rankings consistent with their overall standings: Yukun eighth, Henan eleventh, Three Towns twelfth, and New Pengcheng fourteenth.

It is worth noting that half of the CSP Super League teams have home rankings better than their overall rankings. Dalian Yingbo and Qingdao Hainiu have home ranks two places higher than overall; Beijing Guoan, Chengdu Rongcheng, Shandong Taishan, Zhejiang Club Greentown, Qingdao West Coast, and Changchun Yatai have home rankings one place higher than overall.

In the first 22 rounds, six teams—Shanghai Port, Tianjin Jinmen Tiger, Henan Club, Meizhou Hakka, Changchun Yatai, and Chengdu Rongcheng—have away records better than their overall rankings. The top five among them improved by two places: Port is third overall but first away; Jinmen Tiger seventh overall but fifth away; Henan eleventh overall but ninth away; Meizhou thirteenth overall but eleventh away; Yatai last overall but fourteenth away.

Chengdu Rongcheng’s away record ranks one place higher than its overall ranking: fourth overall, third away.

Yunnan Yukun, Qingdao West Coast, and Wuhan Three Towns have away rankings matching their overall positions: eighth, tenth, and twelfth respectively.

Shanghai Shenhua, Shandong Taishan, Zhejiang Club, Shenzhen New Pengcheng, and Qingdao Hainiu all have away rankings one place lower than their overall rankings, while Beijing Guoan’s away rank dropped two places. Dalian Yingbo ranks ninth overall but only thirteenth away.

Among the top six teams on the points table after 22 rounds, all have home rankings within the top six and only slight differences in away performance. Sixth-ranked Zhejiang is seventh away; Jinmen Tiger, ranked seventh overall, is fifth away and tied on points (34) with Zhejiang. The top four teams all rank within the top four away, with only Shanghai Port ranking sixth at home while the other three are in the top three.

Table leader Shenhua ranks second both home and away; second-placed Guoan is first at home and fourth away; third-placed Port is sixth at home but first away; fourth-placed Rongcheng ranks third both home and away; fifth-placed Taishan is fourth at home and sixth away; sixth-placed Zhejiang is fifth at home and seventh away.

Mid-table teams Jinmen Tiger, Yingbo, West Coast, and Henan have overall rankings close to their home and away rankings. Jinmen Tiger is seventh overall, tenth at home, and fifth away; Yingbo is ninth overall, seventh at home, and thirteenth away; West Coast is tenth overall, ninth at home, and tenth away; Henan is eleventh overall, eleventh at home, and ninth away.

The bottom four teams’ overall rankings closely match their home and away performances. Meizhou, ranked thirteenth overall, is last at home but eleventh away; New Pengcheng, fourteenth overall, is fourteenth at home and second to last away; Hainiu, fifteenth overall, is thirteenth at home and last away; Yatai, last overall, is second to last at home and fourteenth away. In other words, all four relegation-threatened teams have at least one home or away ranking in the relegation zone!

It is noteworthy that two teams in the CSP Super League maintain remarkably stable home and away performances: Yukun and Three Towns. Yukun ranks eighth overall and eighth both home and away; Three Towns ranks twelfth overall and twelfth both home and away.

Among all 16 teams, only Shanghai Port’s away points exceed its home points by 4. After 22 rounds, Port leads away records with 26 points, accounting for 54.2% of its total 48 points. Moreover, Port is the only unbeaten team away during these rounds, with 8 wins and 2 draws in 10 away matches. However, Port has only earned 22 points at home, ranking outside the top five in home performance.

Most teams earn more points at home than away. Shenhua and Rongcheng have one more home point than away; Jinmen Tiger has two more; Meizhou three more; Guoan four more; Henan, Three Towns, Yatai, Taishan, and New Pengcheng each have between 6 and 9 more points at home.

Yukun, West Coast, Hainiu, Zhejiang, and Yingbo show large disparities between home and away performances, all with double-digit point differences. Yukun, West Coast, and Hainiu have 11 more points at home than away; Zhejiang has 12 more; Yingbo’s difference is the most extreme at 15 points.

By the end of round 22, Dalian Yingbo has 29 points, ranking ninth in the CSP Super League, with 22 points earned at home but only 7 away. Yingbo’s home points account for 75.9% of its total, second only to Hainiu’s 86.7% and New Pengcheng’s 76.5%. Yingbo’s home record stands at 7 wins, 1 draw, and 3 losses in 11 matches, ranking seventh in home performance. Its home win rate is 63.6%, behind only Shenhua (80.0%) and Guoan (72.7%). Yingbo’s home form clearly shows a team competing for Asian qualification.

In Yingbo’s 11 home games, 7 have attracted crowds exceeding 60,000, totaling 631,840 spectators and averaging 57,440 per game—higher than Guoan’s 47,843 and Rongcheng’s 40,851—making it the highest home attendance rate in the CSP Super League.

Dalian fans are well known for their football knowledge and passion, creating one of the nation’s top football atmospheres. Each Yingbo home game is intensely charged with fan groups in the north and south stands energizing the crowd, producing a daunting atmosphere that often suffocates visiting teams. In terms of ticket sales, merchandise, and commercial activities, Dalian fans give Yingbo unwavering support. Football insiders and Yingbo club executives alike agree that Dalian has the nation’s best “12th man.”

In response to relevant authorities, Dalian continues deepening football reforms to uphold its reputation as a “football city.” During the 14th Five-Year Plan, Dalian was named among the first batch of national key cities for football development, accelerating the construction of a national youth training base and 12 district-level centers. The municipal government prioritizes cultural, sports, and tourism integration, establishing a high-level leadership group to promote high-quality sports development, injecting strong momentum into the city’s growth. Yingbo is more than a club, and CSP home matches are more than games—they are a vital part of Dalian’s cultural, sports, and tourism integration strategy, thus receiving unprecedented attention and support.

In its first 11 home matches, Yingbo defeated Yatai, Henan, Yukun, Meizhou, Zhejiang, Taishan, and Hainiu; drew with Jinmen Tiger; and lost to Guoan, Shenhua, and Rongcheng. Against five teams outside the top four, Yingbo remains unbeaten at home. Matches against New Pengcheng, West Coast, and Three Towns are yet to be played. However, except for the match against Port, Yingbo has lost all home games against top-four teams without scoring a goal.

Additionally, Yingbo scored only 21 goals in 22 rounds, averaging less than one goal per game (0.95), ranking among the three lowest-scoring teams in the league, just one and three goals ahead of the relegation zone teams. Yingbo’s top scorer, Malaile, has only 6 goals in 22 rounds, including 2 penalties. Yingbo scored 13 goals in 11 home games, averaging 1.18 goals per game, second lowest, slightly better than Yatai’s 0.75.

In 11 away matches, Yingbo has only 1 win, with 4 draws and 6 losses, ranking fourth from bottom in away performance, typical of a relegation-level team. Specifically, Yingbo’s only away win was against last-place Yatai; it drew with second-last Hainiu, third-last New Pengcheng, and fifth-last Three Towns; matches against third-last Meizhou remain unplayed. Against the top eleven teams, except for Yukun, Guoan, and Shenhua (not yet played), Yingbo drew once with Zhejiang and lost to Taishan, Rongcheng, West Coast, Port, Jinmen Tiger, and Henan.

From the above data, it is clear that Yingbo mainly collects points against the bottom five teams and can also snatch points at home from mid-table and upper-mid-table teams. However, as a newly promoted team, Yingbo lacks the strength to challenge stronger teams, resulting in inevitable away defeats and home struggles. Of course, Yingbo’s clear “selection” of point-earning targets partly reflects its overall capacity, especially its strategic consideration regarding goal-scoring ability.