Pep, the chief assistant coach of the national football team, entered the role and increased the intensity of the first training

Source: Sports Weekly

On the afternoon of January 24, the Chinese men's national football team went to the Saitama 2002 World Cup Stadium to conduct their first training session after arriving in Japan. Two Brazilian naturalized players, Lo Guofu and Alain, stayed at the hotel shortly after their arrival, while the other 24 players all participated in training. It is worth noting that the first assistant coach Pep, hand-picked by head coach Li Xiaopeng, finally entered the role and directed the completion of the first training session. Although it was only the first practice, the intensity and rhythm of the training were significantly faster, and the 11-on-11 confrontation exercise was directly launched.

Previously, because the national football team has reserved a certain physical foundation during the training in Shanghai, as Li Xiaopeng said in an interview before the game, in the second internal confrontation game before the departure, through data detection, a player's running distance in the whole game reached 13 kilometers, which has explained the physical reserves of the international footballers from one side. In this case, although the whole team arrived in Japan, although there were only 3 training sessions, Pep, who was responsible for the technical and tactical content, met with the whole team, so that it could be more targeted around the technical and tactical content.

It can be said that this is also the best effect that can be achieved after Pep cannot go to Shanghai to meet the national football team, and Li Xiaopeng leads the Chinese teaching assistant team to communicate remotely with Pep. Because although the national football team has a short time to assemble from the game and the team is in urgent need of running-in, in the case of the need to implement the relevant requirements, even if Pep can go to Shanghai, I am afraid it will be difficult to carry out targeted technical and tactical exercises like in Japan. After all, there were a large number of people during the Training Camp in Shanghai, and it was deployed in teams, and it was difficult for the two groups to carry out training in one way.

In this afternoon's training, after a series of preparatory activities under the command of the physical coach Wilke, the team was handed over to Pep. Pep arranged a squad confrontation drill, the players present were divided into two, 11-on-11 in two-thirds of the field area to carry out confrontation drills. Throughout the training, Pep did not pause much, and the intensity of the confrontation was quite large. Obviously, this arrangement is to remind all players once again that the future Japan-China war will be a strong confrontation and high-paced game, and only by first adapting to such rhythm and intensity can it be possible to negotiate with the Japanese team.

During the whole training period, Li Xiaopeng was more like during the Training Camp in Shanghai, standing on the sidelines and watching, and communicating with the Chinese assistant teachers around him from time to time. Among them, Chen Yang mainly assisted Pei Pu in training, while Gao Yao and Zheng Zhi were originally members of the special training coaching team during their time in Shanghai, and after the coaching staff was streamlined, they were responsible for the analysis and research of technical and tactical aspects, and cooperated with Li Xiaopeng's work. Among them, Zheng Zhiyin has just transformed, and also plays the role of "big brother", maintaining smooth communication and exchanges with the players, and keeping abreast of the players' situation and ideas.

Judging from the training situation, how the national football team will meet the Japanese team has not yet been clearly stated. The significance of this lesson is to let the players know more about Pep's training style, after all, most of the players in the team are in contact with Pep for the first time. Moreover, in the case that Luo Guofu will certainly not be able to play against Japan, it remains to be seen how Alain's situation will be. Only in tomorrow's training, after Alain also returns to the team to participate in training, the team will carry out more targeted and specific tactical exercises. From the perspective of the arrangement of the game cycle, today's training class can also be regarded as the last large-scale training class before the Battle of Japan and China, and finally a strong stimulation of the players' competitive status. Starting tomorrow, the national football training will begin to reduce the amount and adjust the state, and make final preparations for the match on the 27th.