As the former 8 champions of the Chinese Super League, today's Guangzhou team (formerly Guangzhou Evergrande) has long ceased to be beautiful. For reasons that are well known, after the restart of the Chinese Super League, Guangzhou lacked nearly half of the main players, which made them unable to win two consecutive rounds of the league.
After a one-goal defeat to Beijing Guoan in the first round of the second stage of the Chinese Super League, Guangzhou drew 1-1 with Hebei in the last round. In this game, the return of Zhang Linpeng and Jiang Guangtai made the Guangzhou team's backline a lot more stable.
Wei Shihao received Zhang Linpeng's assisted header shortly after the start of the second half, which made many people see the hope of winning. It can be said that the performance of these 3 active internationals on the field did not disappoint the fans.
However, the best player in the Guangzhou team in this game is not the above 3, but the U23 young player Yan Dinghao in the front.
In this campaign, Yan Dinghao, who started the game, had an extremely good performance at both ends of the guangzhou team's attack and defense. Defensively, he actively ran on the field and made many successful interceptions, effectively relieving the pressure on Guangzhou's wing defense. In terms of attack, Yan Dinghao not only effectively connected the Guangzhou midfield. At the same time, he also became the core player of the Guangzhou midfield to launch an attack.
In the 16th minute of the first half, Yan Dinghao sent a scalpel-like precision assist to Yang Liyu who was suddenly in front, allowing the latter to burst into the Hebei team's penalty area, forming a one-on-one opportunity with the opposing goalkeeper. Unfortunately, Yang Liyu's shot was saved by Hebei team goalkeeper Bao Yaxiong, who attacked in time, and missed this good opportunity to break the goal.
Four minutes later, Guangzhou successfully broke the ball in front of the field, Yan Dinghao received the ball, and distributed the ball to Wei Shihao, whose shot was once again deflected out of the opponent's goal. Yan Dinghao's 2 exquisite assists fully demonstrated his broad vision and precise footwork.
In the first half of the game, Yan Dinghao delivered 3 extremely threatening assists, and if his teammates can seize one of these opportunities, then Guangzhou can lead the opponent in the first half.
This is just a microcosm of Yan Dinghao's outstanding performance in the whole game, Yan Dinghao's passing success rate in this game is as high as 90%, and he also has 3 successful steals in defense, which is enough to prove that Yan Dinghao is the best performer in this game in Guangzhou.
It can be said that this season in Paulinho's departure, Zheng Zhi became the team's head coach and veteran Huang Bowen could not play due to injury, the young player Yan Dinghao has taken on the heavy responsibility of organizing the front and back of the tandem team and launching an attack, and now he has become the most tactical midfielder in the Guangzhou team.
This season, with Zheng Zhi basically in retirement, Guangzhou has been looking for a player who can play a core role in the midfield, and Yan Dinghao's outstanding performance has made him the player closest to "Zheng Zhi's successor".
I believe that Yan Dinghao's outstanding performance will definitely be seen by Li Xiaopeng, the new coach of the national football team. Putting aside some off-field factors, Li Xiaopeng has every reason to call Yan Dinghao into the latest national team.
The 23-year-old Yan Dinghao is still very young, and accepting more international A-level events as soon as possible will help him grow up quickly. Here, we also call on Li Xiaopeng to be able to summon Yan Dinghao to the national football team, so that he can become the new core player of the national football team in the future after Zheng Zhi and Arthur Junmin.