On the evening of February 6, the Chinese women's football team won the Asian Cup for the first time in 16 years, dominating all social media.
With the fiasco at the Tokyo Olympics last August less than half a year after India's asian cup triumph today, what makes the once-dying "sonorous rose" come back to life?
If all options are liberalized for everyone to vote, "change the coach, Shui Qingxia will take office" should be the factor with the highest vote.
What has Changed and Awakened?
To put it simply, one is the atmosphere, and the other is the system.
In a team sport, this thing is the most invisible and untouchable thing, but also the most subtle and shadowy thing.
After the fiasco at the Tokyo Olympics, Jia Xiuquan lost the qualification to continue to lead the Chinese women's football team to the Shaanxi National Games. Shui Qingxia was temporarily invited to lead the team to participate in the competition, and eventually led the team to the National Games championship. This is, of course, just a "prelude".
On December 8, 2021, the Chinese Football Association announced the first training list after Shui Qingxia coached the women's football team, a total of 34 people, careful people compared the Olympic list a few months ago, found that 12 Olympic players were not selected, and more players who were excluded from the Olympic list at that time were recalled. The most extreme example is of course the former Shanghai women's football player Tang Jiali, Jia Xiuquan did not choose her to go to the Olympic Games, but she then transferred to Tottenham Hotspur to play in the women's Premier League.
It's ridiculous to think about a lot of things.
Then from December 10 to January 15, a period of 35 days, five weeks of training, the Asian Cup registration list is 23 people, that is, with Shui Qingxia in shanghai Oriental Green Boat training, 11 people will eventually fail.
They are in the Eastern Green Boat closed training, practice some things, what atmosphere in the team, the outside world may not know at all. But there is a point, from the selection list, to the elimination of one-third of the people after the training, and finally set off for India to participate, the outside world did not hear any doubts about the "selection and employment of people".
To know that in these years, who has grievances in their hearts, it is very convenient to send a few complaints through various channels and platforms. But this women's soccer team did not.
Selecting and appointing people requires an ethos. It is no exaggeration to say that Shui Qingxia purified the atmosphere with her own public heart and courage.
As for the system, there is both a tactical level and a spiritual level.
For more than a decade, the continuous decline in performance and the decline in world rankings have made the technical and tactical thinking of women's football from "I am a strong team" to "I am a second-rate team", and the technical and tactical design of "fear, shrinking and defending" has begun to become the mainstream of women's football competitions.
This women's football team started from the first round of the group stage 4-0 victory over Chinese Taipei, followed by a 7-0 defeat of Iran, a quarter of the 3-1 defeat to Vietnam (the Chinese men's football team a few days later lost to Vietnam 1-3 on the first day of the Chinese New Year), the semi-final in an extremely passive situation to drag the Japanese women's football team into a penalty shootout and finally won, and finally the final in the case of 0-2 behind the second half of the super reversal 3-2 overturn to win the championship, just from the scene, the first three games against the weak brigade is actually of little reference significance, against Japan is a thorough "technical and tactical deficiency." , make up for it by mental strength" game.
But look closely, in the face of the South Korean team, which has a good strength and only conceded one goal in all the games before the final, the Chinese team does not have any cowering posture, and when the two goals are behind, it is a perfect interpretation that does not abandon and does not give up, and the third goal, from the perspective of passing and receiving the ball, is absolutely the world's top level.
In the Chinese sports world, no matter how much the score is behind, you can not look at the team project that scores and opponents play to the end, before there was only a women's volleyball team, now you can add a women's football team.
Shui Qingxia's personal career is perfectly in line with the most brilliant course of the old generation of Chinese women's football, what the old women's football team has practiced, what the old women's football team has suffered, and how the old women's football team has carried out "atmosphere construction" and "spiritual construction" in the team, I am afraid that no one will know better than Shui Qingxia. What's more, over the years she has always been active in the front line of women's football coaching, her technical and tactical thinking is always online, what she does, more is to teach, more is "awakening".
The spirit and temperament of a team cannot be lost overnight, but if you do it well, it is entirely possible to get it back overnight. What Shui Qingxia has changed is the atmosphere and system, and it is precisely the spirit and temperament that it awakens.
Just like tonight's reversal from 0-2 to 3-2, the South Korean women's football team will have a lingering feeling when it encounters the Chinese team in the next few years. The feeling of being lost for as long as the championship trophy is the kind of coolness that makes others scared and hurt.
Some people joke that the four most important words in life are "eaten, seen". Compared with the men's football team, the women's football team has never really "eaten and seen" in the material, but at the spiritual level and the level of historical honor, the Chinese women's football team is precisely a team that has "eaten and seen". This is a deeper than bonuses and slogans that go deeper into the marrow of the bones and genes.
If the wind is clear, the qi is righteous, the qi is righteous, and the heart is united.
With the appointment of Shui Qingxia, the Chinese women's football team has both turned over South Korea and its own destiny, and that's it.