John Aloisi’s Chengdu Rongcheng Lose CSL Title After Late Collapse

A season turned in its final stretch

John Aloisi’s first season in China ended with a title slipping away on the final day. Chengdu Rongcheng had led the Chinese Super League from the opening round and, with five matches left, held a 14-point advantage. They needed only one point to secure the club’s first championship. For a side that had controlled the standings for so long, the finish was a sharp reversal.

The scale of the lead makes the collapse harder to explain away as a routine late-season wobble. A 14-point cushion with five games remaining left Chengdu in a position where the title appeared to be theirs to lose. Then three consecutive defeats changed the race. In a league decided across a long season, those losses turned what looked settled into a contest that went to the last match.

Dalian Yingbo took advantage. The club, whose assistant coach is former Western Sydney Wanderers manager Marko Rudan, won three straight games during Chengdu’s slide and began Sunday’s finale three points behind. Dalian still needed results to fall its way, but Chengdu’s run of defeats gave it a path back into contention.

A final-day swing

Dalian beat Tianjin Jinmen Tigers 3-1 in front of 60,000 fans. Chengdu still controlled its own fate: a point would have been enough to claim the title. But Shandong Taishan led Aloisi’s team 3-1 by the 63rd minute, putting the championship in immediate danger. Brazilian forward Wellington Silva pulled one goal back, yet Chengdu couldn’t find the equaliser it needed.

That left the outcome dependent on more than the final-day scorelines. Chengdu finished with the better goal difference, a measure that often decides close title races, but the CSL ranks teams by their head-to-head record first. Dalian had won both meetings between the clubs. That record gave Dalian the championship despite starting the day three points behind.

Here’s the thing: Chengdu’s failure to secure a point in the finale was only the last part of the story. The earlier defeats had stripped away the margin for error, while the head-to-head rule meant the better goal difference offered no rescue. A league table can make a season look like a simple tally, but tie-breaking rules can carry the weight of an entire campaign.

Aloisi calls for a review

Speaking through a Chinese translator, Aloisi said the team was “very disappointed” and “in a very despairing state.” He apologised to supporters who had travelled to back Chengdu, acknowledging the distance and commitment behind their presence. “We could see the trophy right in front of us, but could not get it,” he said. The phrasing captures the abrupt shift from expectation to loss, though it doesn’t explain how Chengdu’s form deteriorated.

What the loss means for Aloisi

The collapse denied Aloisi the chance to join fellow Australian Kevin Muscat among recent CSL champions. Muscat guided Shanghai Port to titles in 2024 and 2025. Aloisi arrived in China in January after leading Western United to the 2021/2022 A-League Championship, bringing experience of a title-winning campaign into a new league and setting.

That pedigree makes the season’s ending more striking, but it doesn’t settle what comes next. Aloisi sidestepped questions about resigning and said the immediate task was to review the final five matches and identify where Chengdu fell short. That review matters because the late collapse was not confined to the last afternoon: three consecutive defeats had already put the championship at risk.

If you’re working in this space, the lesson is familiar: a large lead can disguise how quickly a season’s control can erode. Chengdu had the advantage, the home stretch, and a final-day route to the title, yet the head-to-head record and a missed point left no room to recover. This is more significant than it looks. For Aloisi, the review will have to account for both the losing run and the failure to convert a final chance.

And yet, the facts point only to the need for that examination, not to its conclusions. The season’s ending leaves the questions clear: what changed across those five matches, and why couldn’t Chengdu stop the slide? A title that once seemed within reach is now the standard against which that analysis will be judged.