The new season of Central B opens today: the average strength, who is the favorite?

Reporter Wang Wei reports At 3 p.m. on March 22, the 2025 season kicked off, and the opening ceremony and opening match were held between Guizhou Zhucheng Athletic and Kunming City Stars. Compared with last season, this season's competition system has changed greatly, and 8 teams in the championship group will compete for two promotion places, Guizhou Zhucheng Athletic, Jiangxi Lushan, Wuxi Wugou, Haimen Ke Yuan, Hangzhou Linping Wuyue, Guangzhou Dandelion, Shenzhen 2028, Guangxi Hengchen and other teams have certain strength.

In the 2024 season, there will be 20 teams participating in the second division, and in the 2025 season, it will become 24 teams, and the number of teams will increase, and the system of the second division will also change this year.

According to the competition regulations, this year's China B is divided into two stages: preliminaries and finals, with a total of 30 rounds of competition. In the preliminary stage, all teams will be divided equally according to the latitude of the city where the main stadium is located, and the team of China B and club B will be divided equally according to the two regions of north and south, with 12 teams in each region, and a double round-robin system of home and away in the division will be adopted, with a total of 264 matches in 22 rounds. In the final stage, a home-and-away double round-robin system will be adopted, and the top four in the south and north will enter the championship group according to the ranking of each district in the preliminary stage. The 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th teams in the South Zone will enter Group A with the 6th, 8th, 10th, and 12th teams in the North Zone; The 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th teams from the South Zone and the 5th, 7th, 9th and 11th teams from the North Zone are in Group B. Two matches each between the 4 teams in the South Zone and the 4 teams in the North Zone (teams from the same zone do not play in the preliminary stage); A total of 8 rounds of 96 matches will be played in this stage.

The relegation rules for the 2025 season are that the top two clubs in the second division of the season will be promoted to the next season. Club B team was only relegated but not promoted in the second division, and the 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 24th teams in the whole season of the second division were relegated. According to the rules of the competition, the points from the preliminary stage will be carried over to the final stage.

The championship group is contested by 8 teams this year, compared to 10 teams last season. In the 2025 season, the competition in the second division will tend to be white-hot, and compared with the 2024 season, the strength of the teams expected to enter the championship group in the 2025 season is relatively average.

In the southern district, the 2024 champion Shenzhen 2028 team, the runner-up Guizhou Zhucheng Athletic, as well as Guangzhou Dandelion and Guangxi Hengchen have the strength to impact the top four in the southern region, of which the coach of Shenzhen 2028 team is Wang Baoshan, Guizhou Zhucheng Athletic is Zhu Jiong, Guangzhou Dandelion is Tan Ende, and Guangxi Hengchen is Liu Junwei.

Among them, Guizhou Zhucheng Athletic Hedge A is relatively well prepared, while Shenzhen 2028 is the U20 team of the Guangdong National Games, and the age structure of Guangzhou Dandelion players is more reasonable; Guangxi Hengchen, who finished 7th in the second division last season, will have some stamina after overcoming the impact of the suspension.

In the North District, Hangzhou Linping Wuyue (Langfang City of Glory last season) won the 5th place in the second division last season, only one step away from the supplementary middle league; Jiangxi Lushan and Wuxi Wugou, which were relegated from the middle league to the second division last season, have a comeback, and the team has introduced a number of players in the new season; In addition, Haimenke, who finished 10th in the second division last season, also has a certain competitiveness.

In addition, at the beginning of this season, after Rizhao Yuqi changed its home stadium and changed the registered member association to establish Lanzhou Longyuan Athletic, this Lanzhou team is also worth looking forward to, especially after the establishment of Lanzhou Longyuan Athletic, which has driven the ball market in Lanzhou, a famous city in the northwest, in the new season, the home stadium of Lanzhou Longyuan Athletic Team is expected to become a beautiful scenery in the second division.

In particular, it is worth mentioning that this season's Zhongyi provides a good training platform for this year's 15th National Games, and among the 24 teams, Shenzhen 2028, Guangdong Mingtu, Hubei Youth Star and other teams have National Games tasks, and the Zhongyi platform provides them with training opportunities.

In addition, there are four club B teams participating in the second division this season, namely Taishan B team, Harbour B team, Rongcheng B team and Three Towns B team. According to the regulations, there are only 0.5 promotion places in the U21 league in the 2025 season, and the winner of the 2025 season of the U21 league needs to compete for a promotion place with the fourth place in the 2025 season. This move can better ensure the competitiveness and integrity of the U21 league.