On January 14, a number of international players of Shandong Taishan team came to Shanghai to report to the national team, in addition to Guo Tianyu's leave of absence and postpone the return of the team, the other 9 international players of the Taishan team have returned to the team, especially Liu Yang, who returned to the national team after 2 years, reported a day in advance, which fully reflects Liu Yang's importance to being selected for the national team again.
Previously, 10 players from the Taishan team were selected for the 52-man roster of Li Xiaopeng's national team in the first phase of training, and Wu Xinghan, who could not participate in the training due to injury, was a complete starting lineup, but we still felt that there were still shortcomings, yes, there was also a lack of an offensive midfielder who organized tandem matches. In fact, Duan Liu Yu is very suitable, and even Li Xiaopeng, then head coach of Shandong Luneng, mentioned in an interview shortly after Li Tiegang became the head coach of the national team in 2020 that Duan Liu Yu already has the strength of a national team player, and he is very suitable for playing football.
In 2019, the 21-year-old Duan Liu Yu opened the road of the Chinese Super League as a U23 player under Li Xiaopeng, scoring 2 goals and assisting 5 times in his first season, and his performance was quite outstanding. His ball control is very characteristic, although the speed is not fast, but the rhythm is very good, the left and right feet of the ball control and shooting ability is also very balanced, you can not even say which foot his main foot is.
In the 2020 season, Duan Liu Yu scored 3 goals and assisted 3 times, although the playing time was divided by Guo Tianyu, but Duan Liu Yu still had a good performance.
In the last year of the 2021 season to enjoy the benefits of U23, Liu Yu encountered a strong challenge, this season Taishan team reinforced Sun Zhunhao and Xu Xin in midfield, not only Duan Liu Yu, even Arthur Junmin's playing time is difficult to guarantee, fortunately, Duan Liu Yu can also rely on U23 identity to get some opportunities, but because After Pele left, Taishan team needed a tall striker, Guo Tianyu impressed Hao Wei with his outstanding performance, and Duan Liu Yu fell behind in the competition for U23 identity.
Although Liu Yu made 16 league appearances throughout the season, he only had 550 minutes in total, averaging 35 minutes per game. The stats of scoring 3 goals and assisting 2 times are good, but the playing time is still too small, more than half less than the 2020 season. In addition to not having enough performance opportunities, Duan Liuyu also played a little restrained in his playing time this season, not released enough, which is also directly related to the lack of playing time and the inability to continue to maintain a good state.
Another problem that restricts Duan Liu Yu's performance is the position, Duan Liu Yu's characteristics are more like a traditional type of front waist, holding the ball in tandem is good, but the physical condition is general, the confrontation ability needs to be improved, when encountering fierce defense, it will be more difficult to play, and in Hao Wei's lineup, similar positions use more Moises and Xu Xin, two more mature players, Duan Liu Yu has no advantage in position competition.
As the core player of the 97-year-old national Olympic team, Duan Liu Yu was previously selected by the Football Association's plan to stay in the West, but for various reasons everything only stayed in the rumors.
Two years ago, Li Xiaopeng believed that Duan Liu Yu had the strength to be selected for the national team, but now Li Xiaopeng has not brought his former beloved apprentice to the national team after serving as the head coach of the national team, which proves that Li Xiaopeng does not overly consider human feelings and sophistication, and secondly, shows that Duan Liu Yu's performance in the 2021 season has not reached the height recognized by Li Xiaopeng.
After entering 2022, Liu Yu's U23 player status has expired, and he wants to work harder to get the opportunity to play in Taishan, the important goal of the national team after the Qatar World Preliminary Tournament is the 2023 Asian Cup, and I hope that Duan Liu Yu, who is still in the golden period of rising ball, can seize the opportunity to impress Li Xiaopeng with his own performance and knock on the door of the national team.