On September 25, the 2021 Jinshan Cup ended the third round of the tournament, with the Chinese 06 age group Guoshao A team defeating shandong Taishan 05 age team 2-1, and the National Junior B team losing 0-3 to the Zhejiang 05 age group team. After the game, Yang Chen, as the head coach of the national junior team, was interviewed. Yang Chen, while talking about his coaching ideas, made it clear that the Jinshan Cup is a rare training opportunity, and the national junior team deliberately divided into two to participate in this competition, just to arrange more players to be inspected in order to prepare for the U17 Asian Cup qualifiers in September next year.
1. Talk about team ideas: not only teach football
Q: This is the first time you have played as the head coach of the 06-year-old national junior team. First of all, can you introduce what kind of qualities you pay more attention to cultivating players in the process of forming this team you are now forming? Or what kind of characteristics do you want to have?
Yang Chen: I only formed this U16 national junior team in May. In fact, everyone knows that their actual age is only 15 years old, because next year's event is the U17 Asian Cup qualifiers, so this team is named "U16 National Junior Team". To organize these young players, I think the most important point is to let them receive patriotic education and have a sense of national honor. I think as a young player at this age, this has to be the content of the first lesson, and then there is a sense of teamwork and responsibility. I think the content of this aspect should run through the construction of the whole team, and we must always strengthen education in this regard. Of course, I believe everyone has also seen that our young players are very neat in all aspects from the details of hairstyles and other details, and I think that young players in this age group should have a new look. On the pitch, their ability to show themselves is the most important.
Q: We have noticed that in the coaching staff, there are also assistants who are as good as you, including players like goalkeeper coach Yang Jun, who were more well-known before, including you. Is this a better motivating effect for small players? Can you follow the stars who grew up watching them play football and receive their guidance?
Yang Chen: That's for sure, and these coaches are all athletes who have played professional football and have played in national teams at all levels before. I think it feels different for the little players to have these idols teach the little players, to coach them to train, to teach them how to do their technical moves better. I think the young players don't just have a sense of freshness at first in the process of learning. How to describe it? Maybe as we say every day, there needs to be an adaptation period, or there is a "honeymoon period", after this period, in fact, the young players really value, or whether these coaches have real kung fu, can they learn real skills from them, I think this is very important. So, for us coaches, the real test is still behind.
Q: You were selected at the end of February and were successfully elected as the head coach of this national junior team. We know that you used to be a team manager or assistant coach on a higher-age team. Do you think that bringing this batch of 15- and 6-year-old children is the biggest difference from the management of teaching assistants or team leaders before you? Or what do you need to adapt to and adjust?
Yang Chen: I think that children at this age are actually making progress very fast, and in this process, you can actually help them make some changes in the process of growing up, and you can really help them. Because I've been a team manager or assistant coach in U20, U21, U22 and other teams before, I think players in that age group are basically in the stereotype stage, that is, we can instill more tactics. But like the team I'm taking over now, maybe I'm going to instill some tactical things in them, and things like body, physical fitness, etc. can be added up, including strength. Other than that, I feel like they need someone to teach them more, not just football. And with the children, one thing that is particularly happy is that you can feel that these children absorb things very quickly, and you can feel that he is actually improving every day. As long as we do it seriously, as long as we take them to practice every day, even if we play one more practice game, we can feel that they are improving little by little every day.
Q: Children at this age may not have fully formed their thoughts, and their worldview and outlook on life are in the process of being cultivated. As a head coach, in addition to football, do you want to communicate with them a little more, let them understand more, invest more?
Yang Chen: First of all, I also told the children that Yang Dao not only teaches you to play football, but also teaches you to be human, and I want to give them a correct value. Of course, there are many things that can attract them in society now, how to guide them correctly, such as mobile phones, games, etc., we must strictly manage them here, even if it is a little militarized, because I reason with them and hope they can understand. Our real purpose is on the court, usually they may not be like some children in school, it is possible to contact the mobile phone a little more time, contact the game a little more time, or usually a little more rest time, but we let the children practice as much as possible, because our age group of children will practice more, improve their level. Children may not accept it at first, but it requires us to constantly talk to them and instill it.
Of course, as I said before, because I have also played in the national brand, I think the most important thing in this process is to cultivate their sense of national honor from an early age, and winning or losing is very important. Moreover, you are now a member of the youngest U16 national team representing your country, and you should feel that this is an honor, and for this honor, you must pay more than others! No matter what kind of competition you participate in, even if it is only a domestic competition, you must cherish this honor, and in the future, when the epidemic is better and you go out to participate in international competitions, you need to have a sense of honor and be worthy of this honor.
Q: We know that when you were a player, you were an outstanding representative of Chinese football going overseas. In this group of young players, we know that many young players actually went to Europe to play football very early. As a person who has come over, what kind of age do you think is more suitable for going abroad to develop?
Yang Chen: I think that before the age of 16, these young players are in the stage of refining their skills, as long as there is a good coach in China, in fact, he can develop in China. After the age of 16, you need to enter the tactical indoctrination, and the confrontation will increase, after this age, I think it is entirely possible to go to Europe, even if it is to neighboring Japan, South Korea, I think this is a good direction.
Q: When you were 15 or 6 years old, how was your group of players different from players of the same age group now?
Yang Chen: To be honest, the current football development is very fast, the pace of modern football is faster than we were then, and the tactics are very complicated, I think there are too many things that these children can learn now.
If there is any difference, I think it may be that when we are 15 or 6 years old, there may be more characteristic players. For example, some players are fast, some players are better, and some players have good headers, which is actually more obvious. However, I feel that the players now have a better overall ability to cooperate in the game than we did back then, but the personal characteristics do not seem to be as obvious as in our time. I think this may be what we need to think about, but also pondering, that is, personalized training is not as much as we were then, training is more of a holistic training.
For example, when you are 7, 8 years old, 8 or 9 years old, when you really lay the technical foundation, you should emphasize personalized training. For example, if a player is fast on his feet, maybe he combines the ball and we have to give him more effort; for example, if a player bounces well, we should give him a little strengthening in the header. I think when they were in elementary school, these personalized training should be implemented.
2. About the Jinshan Cup: brush selection in the final stage
Q: As you mentioned earlier, the main preparation of this 06-year-old national junior team is the U17 Asian Cup qualifiers next year. Can you introduce the preparation plan and arrangement of the team after the Golden Mountain Cup?
Yang Chen: This time we participated in the Jinshan Cup and everyone saw that we competed as team A and team B. At the end of October, there is also a "Origin Ground Cup" in Zibo, and by that time it may be a team. So from the beginning of the team in May to the current Jinshan Cup, this period of time is actually a process of screening players. After the Golden Mountain Cup, we may determine a big list, the number may be within 35, maybe within 30, and the whole team has really become a U16 national team.
Q: This Jinshan Cup can be said to be a thorough survey of the national minority players in this age group in China, through the recent games, how do you think the national minority players in our age group feel as a whole? What is your personal impression?
Yang Chen: In fact, there were many people who said that after we were in the 01 and 02 age groups, the talent reserve at the lower age group was good. But my current feeling is that although there are two teams at the age of 06, the point difference between them is still relatively large, unlike I originally imagined that there can be many players to choose from, and the actual situation is actually not so optimistic.
Moreover, what we may pay more attention to at this stage is whether there are "players with characteristics and prominence", I think there are such players, but everyone seems to have a very different level, and there is no such thing as a particularly prominent one. Of course, in these positions of forward forward, we are still good at choosing people, but in the defensive line, there are actually not many good seedlings to choose, that is, the differentiation is more obvious. So we sometimes have to change some of the strikers to defenders and make some attempts. There is no way around this, and I even feel that the current backline seedlings are a bit like a broken gear.
I've been wondering why this is happening, whether it's because when children play football, most of them choose to play the forward position, because some of the stars they admire, such as Messi, C Ronaldo, etc., are playing forwards, so they also want to become Messi and C Ronaldo, so there are very few people who really play defenders.
Q: This time the national junior team participated in the Jinshan Cup and was divided into two teams, A team and B team, is this team random, or is it with a certain purpose of investigation, according to some principle to divide the players into team A and team B?
Yang Chen: In fact, the main purpose is to investigate, so that more players have the opportunity to play. The division of team A and team B originally wanted to take each position apart, but we considered that some players such as they had played with a certain team before, may have been more familiar with each other when playing with local teams, because they are more familiar with each other, may be more conducive to his ability to play, performance is stronger, so this factor is taken into account, when the team will be some members of the same local team in a team, I hope they can have a tacit understanding to play, perform better.
Q: The final number of players participating in the Jinshan Cup is 40, how many players are these players selected from?
Yang Chen: There are two main ways for us to select players. One is that there is a League Cup at R&F Football School, there are 6 club teams participating, and we went to the scene to watch the game. There is also an elite selection camp for 80 people in the 05 age group and 06 age group held by the Youth Department of the Football Association in April this year. That is to say, the players we have now are selected from these two places. But at present, because we have carried out four training sessions before the Jinshan Cup, and each period has also been adjusted in individual positions, my current feeling is that players who may be better in this age group can basically see everything, of course, except for the players of this age group who are currently overseas.
Q: Do you think there are any small players in this national junior team who are more prominent and suitable for staying in the west?
Yang Chen: I think there should be. When I pick players, or when I finally merge, I actually merge players according to my system, my tactical ideas and playing style. Sometimes a player may be good and in all respects, but if it doesn't fit into my tactical system, it may have to be excluded. I think there are a lot of players who are fully capable of staying abroad or developing abroad.
Q: Compared with other teams, the national junior team participating in the Jinshan Cup is equal to one year older than us. Do you think this competition is still worth exercising for children of this age?
Yang Chen: I think exercise is of great value. If I just think about the results, I can merge into one team, which may better reflect their true level. But right now, especially during the pandemic, I think it's very important to have these kids play as many games as possible. Because there are very few games between the epidemics themselves, and the Jinshan Cup has changed from an international competition to a domestic team. I think that although the opponent is a year older, it is of particularly high value to our players, especially since these clubs are very strong in the 05 age group. And I believe everyone has also seen that the rhythm of our A team and Shandong team in the afternoon of the third round is very good for both sides of the exercise value.
Q: We are now preparing for the U17 Asian Cup qualifiers and we can't play against other teams of the same age in Asia right now. How do you assess ourselves? How are we positioned at the Asian level as a whole? Will there be more difficulties in the future?
Yang Chen: You are very right! We also try to know more information, that is, the same age team includes Southeast Asia, including West Asian teams, etc., to understand their true level. But it is true that due to the impact of the epidemic, we do not have a lot of information in this regard, and the most important thing is that there is no opportunity to communicate. Because of the limited information, when we assess the level of our team, such as comparing them with the Japanese team of the same age, the Korean team or the Saudi team in West Asia, how far can they achieve? It's really hard to measure. So we can only exercise more on our own, find more older teams in China to play, and play more with those teams that are in good health and fast-paced, hoping to improve the tactical quality of our whole team.
Q: In October, the Origins Cup will probably be played by domestic teams...
Yang Chen: Yes, that was a competition for the 05 age group. We also play small and big to exercise.
Q: If you can't contact foreign teams, do you finally feel that sometimes you don't have a bottom in your heart?
Yang Chen: There is no way to do this. In fact, if there is no epidemic, we should go to neighboring countries such as Japan, South Korea, etc. to play some friendly matches, the value of exercise is the highest, and we can also go to Europe. But the cause of the epidemic, we can only practice at home.