The national football team today circled the "25+4" international football team list

According to the plan, the Chinese team will play the second internal teaching game of the first training session of the New Year at 3 p.m. on November 20 at the Yuanshen Stadium in Pudong, Shanghai, and the last teaching match before going to Japan. The two sides of the match on the 20th are still the red and white teams led by Li Jinyu and Chen Yang, but unlike the first game, this game will be played for 90 minutes under the official rules of the game. After the game, the coaching team with Li Xiaopeng as the coach will draw a list of international players in the 7th and 8th rounds of the "25+4" round of the round of 12 based on the two games and recent training conditions (4 people are candidates). As a special training coach of the national football team, the 41-year-old Zheng Zhi will go out with the team, but will not participate as a player. The international, who failed to make it into the squad, will be recruited as a "standing army" whenever the national team needs it.

On January 23, we took a charter flight to Japan

According to the Beijing Youth Daily reporter, the national football team will leave Shanghai on January 23 by charter flight and go to Tokyo, Japan, to participate in the round of 12 matches against the Japanese team in Saitama on the evening of January 27. To this end, the Chinese team arranged two warm-up matches in this shanghai training camp. Affected by the epidemic and various objective conditions, the Chinese team was unable to implement the warm-up with other teams, so it could only implement the teaching competition in the form of "internal confrontation", which was one of the reasons why they recruited as many as 52 players in the first period of the new year.

On the 16th of this month, the national football team conducted its first internal teaching competition. Considering that some internationals have just arrived in the team, and there are different degrees of personnel injuries and physical fatigue in the team, the game lasted only 50 minutes (25 minutes in the first and second halves). The two sides are the red team led by assistant coach Li Jinyu and the white team led by assistant coach Chen Yang. As a result, the two sides were drawn 1-1. Although the game time is limited and there are not many goals, in the eyes of the coaching staff, the game is extremely technical. Some on-site spectators commented, "Judging from the training and teaching competitions, the serious investment of the international footballers in the game is beyond the imagination of the coaches, and everyone is still unsatisfied." And the ability of the internationals to show prove that they are competitive in the World Preliminary Round. ”

On the 20th, the list of personnel going to Japan was finalized

According to head coach Li Xiaopeng, the national football team will further examine the candidates for Japan through the second internal teaching match on the 20th. The Beiqing Daily reporter learned that the game on the 20th was still led by Li Jinyu and Chen Yang. Since the away match against Japan will start a week later, in order to allow the international team to adapt to the atmosphere of the game in time and adjust the rhythm and state of the game, the coaching team confirmed that the 20th match will be arranged according to the official international competition. In order to ensure the standardization of the game, the Chinese Football Association also invited Xu Qiangqiang, an active national referee of the Chinese Super League, to serve as the main referee of the match through the Shanghai Football Association.

As of January 19, the coaching staff of the national football team has not yet finalized the list of personnel going to Japan. On the one hand, including newcomers and young players, all 44 internationals who arrived in Shanghai have a good mental outlook, and their desire to train and seek competition is very strong. In the process of communicating with the players, the coaching staff has also repeatedly emphasized the concept of fair competition. The reason why the coaching team did not divide the lineup of the 20-day teaching competition according to the so-called "expedition lineup" and "sparring lineup" is also to hope that the players can seize the opportunity to fully demonstrate their ability and potential.

It is understood that after the end of the match on the 20th, the coaching team will circle a "25+4" lineup according to the past week's training, two teaching matches and the physical condition of the players, and the number of international players who finally went to Japan was about 25.

Zheng Zhi did not play as a teaching assistant

So far, the striker Guo Tianyu, who is on leave due to family affairs, has not yet arrived at the team, and he is likely not to be able to go out with the team. As for the five naturalized internationals, the Chinese team has maintained contact with them. But from the specific situation, only forward Alain and defender Jiang Guangtai have a relatively large chance of arriving in the team. In the context of the long-term lack of systematic training, the physical condition of the two of them can be qualified for the high-intensity competition in the back is also questionable. Among the two players who play for European clubs, Wu Lei will most likely go directly to Japan to meet the team, and as for whether Li Lei will participate, it will need further consideration by the coaching staff.

Recently, it has been reported that Zheng Zhi, as one of the Chinese assistant coaches of the national football team, is expected to accompany the national football team as a player and a coach. However, the Beiqing Daily reporter verified and understood that although Zheng Zhi will go to Japan with the team, his identity is a member of the coaching team. In fact, since the concentration of the national football team on the 11th of this month, Zheng Zhi has been assisting Li Xiaopeng in inspecting the team members as a special training coach and conducting special training for key players, he did not participate in the team's training and warm-up matches, and naturally it is impossible to participate as a player.

Article/Reporter Xiao Zhao

Photo courtesy of Visual China Co-ordinator / Wang Haozhou