Stalemate in Dingnan: Heilongjiang Lava Spring and Nantong Zhiyun Share the Spoils as League One Playoff Race Intensifies

From the opening whistle at the Dingnan Football Youth Training Center, the stakes were unmistakable. Level on points, level in ambition, Heilongjiang Lava Spring and Nantong Zhiyun collided on Sunday in a contest thick with playoff implication—and emerged, after 90 tightly contested minutes, still inseparable.

As autumn’s chill settled over Dingnan, both clubs arrived with 40 points apiece, perched precariously at sixth and seventh in League One. Each had flashed recent form worthy of a promotion chase, and each brought an unmistakable urgency to a fixture that may yet define their season’s trajectory.

For the home side, the early momentum felt almost inevitable. In just the ninth minute, Heilongjiang Lava Spring took advantage of a defensive lapse, surging ahead with a swift, decisive strike. The stadium, packed with a hopeful holiday crowd, erupted—a sensory reminder of the thin margins that have punctuated Heilongjiang’s autumn resurgence. While the identity of the scorer would ultimately matter less than the statement itself, the goal was the crystallization of a squad determined to maintain its charge up the standings.

But Nantong Zhiyun, having scored a remarkable seven goals just one week prior, did not travel to Dingnan to play the role of onlooker. Aleksandar Kolev, whose form has been a constant for Nantong in recent weeks, imposed himself on the match at the 34-minute mark. Darting into space on the edge of the penalty area, Kolev latched onto a looping cross, his clinical finish leaving the keeper rooted and the home support momentarily hushed. It was Kolev’s fourth goal in his last three appearances—a run of form that has transformed Nantong’s attack from functional to fearsome.

From there, the match tilted on a knife’s edge. Heilongjiang pressed forward with intent, marshaling waves of pressure in search of a second breakthrough. Their attacking corps, so often the architects of narrow wins in recent weeks, found Nantong’s back line more resolute than most. At the other end, Nantong threatened repeatedly on the break, with Kolev and his supporting cast probing for an opening that never fully arrived.

Both managers will look back at a handful of missed chances—Heilongjiang’s winger slicing wide from inside the box moments before halftime, Nantong’s midfield maestro rattling the crossbar with a thunderous drive as the hour approached. Yet as tempers threatened to flare, the officiating remained firm; no red cards or VAR drama interrupted the afternoon, and the game’s narrative flowed with an absorbing, if occasionally tense, rhythm.

Form lines leading into Sunday’s matchup signaled a contest too close to call. Heilongjiang, unbeaten in their last four and buoyed by recent victories over Yanbian Longding, Shanghai Jiading, and Chongqing Tongliang Long, had fashioned themselves into draw specialists—ten stalemates now marking their campaign, a byproduct of both resilience and a lack of killer instinct. Nantong, meanwhile, had surged up the table on the back of an explosive stretch that included a seven-goal rout of Qingdao Red Lions and a comprehensive away win at Shenzhen Juniors, with Kolev’s midseason arrival sparking a timely renaissance.

A point apiece leaves both clubs locked at 41 points through 27 matches, with only goal difference separating sixth from seventh as the playoff chase enters its most consequential phase. The draw serves as a double-edged sword: it preserves each squad’s position among the playoff hopefuls, but also means that neither could seize a decisive foothold in the race. With just a handful of fixtures remaining, every dropped point looms larger; the mathematics of promotion are now merciless, and opportunities to pull clear of the chasing pack are rapidly dwindling.

While today’s contest ends without a decisive victor, it delivers a compelling scene-setter for the weeks ahead. Heilongjiang Lava Spring and Nantong Zhiyun, separated by the slimmest of margins and destined to measure their ambitions against each other until the campaign’s final act, left Dingnan with everything to play for and little to separate them.

As the playoff line beckons, each club must reckon with what this draw demands: unyielding focus, clinical finishing, and the resilience to outlast rivals locked in similar pursuit. Sunday offered precious little separation in the standings. The season’s true reckoning, it appears, is just beginning.