U23 prepares for battle
What is the fate?
When the new national football team led by Li Xiaopeng flew from Shanghai to Japan to prepare for the round of 12, the Chinese 99-year-old U23 national football team was launching the first training session of the new year in Haikou. For the team, which will play in the Hangzhou Asian Games in September, as coach Jankovic said, although there is no game, it can only try to push forward now. As for the fate of the Asian Games? I can't find the answer yet.
1
Highlight the word "fast" instead of practicing
The U23 national football team began to concentrate in Haikou on January 13, and the whole team of 25 people under the command of Jankovic made pre-season preparations according to the rhythm of "two exercises a day + one practice a day". If you practice twice a day, arrange to go to the training ground for a large number of classes in the morning, go to the gym for strength training in the afternoon, and go to the training ground for ball practice in the morning and rest in the afternoon. Then expand the loop.
Although it belongs to the pre-season preparation period, it is obviously more demanding from the intensity and rhythm of training, which is probably related to Jankovic's consistent requirements, that is, emphasizing the rhythm of offensive and defensive conversion in actual combat. Only by cultivating a fast pace and fast change can players show the word "fast" in the game. The young U23 players obviously understand the requirements of the coach, and have been doing it according to the requirements in actual training, whether it is the circle grabbing in the warm-up activity, or the technical and tactical exercises, or the team confrontation, which reflects this "fast". The pace of training obviously feels much faster than that of the Chinese Super League and the Chinese League One.
In addition to the word "fast", the high pressure and tight pressure in the confrontational midfield are also a major feature of the team. Of course, this is compared with other domestic teams at all levels and professional clubs, because the Chinese Super League and the Chinese League One rarely see teams that can adopt the front court pressure and pressing playing style, so the U23 team's playing style and requirements in training are very "different". But this kind of "alternative" is precisely in line with the requirements and development of modern football, domestic teams at all levels often can not achieve the desired results in the intercontinental competition, and our overall technical and tactical requirements can not keep up with the trend and trend of modern football development has a lot to do with it.
Under normal circumstances, the U23 team will arrange at least two or three warm-up or teaching matches during the preparation period to test the effectiveness of the training camp. Unfortunately, because it is the off-season, there are no Chinese Super League or Chinese League A teams training in Haikou. This makes the U23 national football team troublesome in terms of warm-up arrangements.
It is understood that the U23 national football team will arrange an internal confrontation match on the 26th, and the 25 players participating in the training will be divided into two to compete. The day after the match, the team was disbanded. After the Spring Festival, the players will train with the club. Until the beginning of March, the U23 national football team will resume training, hoping to arrange a series of warm-up matches.
2
There are no games to play, only the league
In fact, not only this Haikou training camp, U23 national football team has not been able to play an international competition for two years since participating in the "Colorful Cup" in Kunming in December 2019 and three international matches with three european clubs, which is the biggest problem facing the team at present. The epidemic has caused great trouble for the Chinese men's national football team to prepare for the round of 12, and the U23 national football team is also the same. Especially compared with Asian clubs of the same age, today's U23 national football team has the possibility of being further left behind by opponents, because since last year, the largest number of Asian opponents have participated in fourteen or five international warm-up matches.
Not only in international competitions, but even in domestic leagues, our players played unevenly. Taking the 25 players participating in the training camp as an example, in the 2021 Chinese Super League, the players who played the most were Zhou Junchen from Qingdao, Ye Lijiang from Shenzhen and Wen Jiabao from Shanghai Shenhua, with 1286, 1282 and 1258 minutes respectively; however, there are also players like Wang Xianjun of Dalian Renren and Sun Qinhan of Changchun Yatai who have sat on the cold bench for a long time, with a cumulative appearance of only 109 minutes and 124 minutes. This also makes it difficult for players to get the opportunity to exercise and improve in the domestic league on a level line.
Of course, it must be admitted that in the past season, there are also players who have played relatively much time, such as Zhang Hui in the Hebei team of the Chinese Super League, who has played 19 times and started 14 times, with a cumulative time of 1186 minutes; Wang Huapeng from Guangzhou City, who has played 14 times and started 10 times, with a cumulative time of 956 minutes. These two men alone have played more than half of the current U23 players.
In the Chinese League, Xu Haoyang, who plays for Wuhan Sanzhen, made 30 appearances in the 2021 season, including 28 starts, with a cumulative time of 2429 minutes; Ji Shengpan, who played for the Beiti Team from Shandong Luneng Football School, made 34 appearances, including 23 starts, with a cumulative time of 2277 minutes, and 7 goals were scored, which is the second local scorer in the list of top scorers in the Chinese League A after Liu Ruovan. In addition, three players have played more than 2,000 minutes.
Among these players, only Xu Haoyang has been selected for the U23 national football team and the U19 national youth team in this age group, while the other players have not had the opportunity to be selected. For this situation, it cannot be said that Jankovic is not clear. After all, Jankovic has been in China since the second half of 2018, and has taken over the team of this age group since November of the same year, and after continuous screening, according to his own technical and tactical guidance, he has drawn up a large list of more than 30 people. The participating players in this Haikou training camp and the five training camps organized in 2021 are basically from this big list.
Each team's coaching philosophy is different, and under the U23 policy, the players used are completely different. Therefore, there will be such a situation: the players that Jankovic looks up to are not necessarily the players that the manager admires in the club, and they are also affected by different positions, so the playing time in the league may not be much; and the players that the club's first-team coaches look up to have a lot of playing time, but they may not be in line with Yankovic's technical and tactical guidance and are the players needed by the U23 national football team.
Therefore, it is easy to understand why in December 2020, the State Management Department of the Chinese Football Association took advantage of the opportunity of the 99-year-old and 01-age teams to train in Haikou and hold a special meeting in Haikou. During the banquet, the 99-year-old team had clearly expressed the hope that the whole team would participate in the 2021 China League A. Those who can play as the main force or main substitute in the Chinese Super League continue to stay in the club club, but others who cannot play or rarely participate are concentrated in the 99 age group to participate in the Chinese First League. However, this plan was rejected by the "China Football Federation Preparatory Group", so the motion of "U22 national football to participate in the 2021 China League One" was also fruitless.
Of course, Jankovic is also well aware of the actual situation of the current players playing in the league, but still has an optimistic attitude: "No matter what, in the past year, our players have still won the opportunity to play through the league, some more, some less, but in the past year, the players have improved. We are now pushing these players to try to continue to move forward, to be able to play well and try to complete the task. ”
3
Asian Games mission The situation is grim
Since the Asian Games men's football match is held at the doorstep, the U23 national football team is not small in task and pressure, so the Chinese Football Association has been trying to help this team create opportunities for international competitions. The first is to find a way to make the team go abroad, after all, since going to Serbia in August 2019 to train, the team members have not gone abroad for more than two years, nor have they had any exchanges with high-level teams, which is very detrimental to the growth and development of the team. Of course, can it be approved by the relevant authorities? This is not something that the team and the Chinese Football Association can decide.
Secondly, in the case of not being able to go abroad to compete, can we create more opportunities for the team to play at home? This is also what the FOOTBALL Association has been trying to help implement. In particular, in view of the current actual situation, the start time of the new season of the Chinese Super League may not be very early, so before the start of the league, let the U23 national football team participate in some high-level invitational matches and warm-up matches, which has become a key problem to study and solve.
Third, due to the Asian Games mission, after the start of the league, U23 players will definitely follow the club teams to participate in the league, how to create more training opportunities and time before September, so that the team can run in? Previously, the National Management Department of the Football Association has made unified arrangements and deployments, and the national brand teams at all levels have also submitted preparation plans. Among them, the U23 national football team can only use the FIFA designated national team competition window to organize training, because the national team also put forward the same demand. Therefore, after the start of the league, the national team only has the June match window to use, and when the next window is September, the U23 national football team has begun to compete in the Asian Games. Therefore, as far as the current situation is concerned, the number and time of training left for the U23 national football team before the Asian Games are not much.
For this U23 national football team, before the "big test" of this year's Hangzhou Asian Games, the situation is quite grim. However, because of the Round of 12, this team and players have not yet entered the public eye, and they have not yet felt the pressure from the outside world.