The Chinese national football team is about to usher in the round of 12 matches with Saudi Arabia. Unlike previous games, the national football team has completely lost the hope of qualifying for the World Cup, so in addition to being required to "not collapse", this game has another purpose to examine new people, and there is no requirement for results. This time, Li Xiaopeng did add several "newcomers" to the national football team, but overall, the team's replacement work is still not optimistic.
More than half of the "30+" veterans
According to the average age, the average age of the 25 players in this national football team is about 28.92 years old, which is a fairly good improvement compared to before. It should be known that during the 2019 Asian Cup, the average age of the national football team is more than 29 years old, which is the "oldest" of the Asian Cup participating teams; and during the round of 12, the average age of the starting lineup of the national football team even exceeded 30 years old at one point. The average age was lowered this time, mainly because Li Xiaopeng recruited several "young" players, including 24-year-old Gao Tianyi, 23-year-old Dai Weijun, 26-year-old Gao Zhuanyi and others.
However, the average age has declined, and the personnel structure of the national football team still seems unreasonable. In the list, there are as many as 12 veterans over the age of 30. If Kim Kyung-do and Lee Lei, who were born in 1992, are also included, then the members of the "30-year-old club" of the national football team have reached 14, more than half of the entire list. Among these veterans, Zhang Linpeng, Arthur Junmin, Wu Xi, Wang Shenchao and others, "visible to the naked eye" will continue to occupy an important position.
In addition, in the national football list, there are only 7 players who are really in the peak age of the profession of 24 to 28 years old, namely Gao Zhunyi, Xu Xin, Zhang Yuning, Tong Lei, Liu Yang, Jiang Guangtai and Gao Tianyi. Among them, only Jiang Guangtai is able to gain a firm foothold in the main lineup of the national football team, Xu Xin and Zhang Yuning are still working hard for a solid starting place, and the other four are either marginal internationals or pure "recruits".
Therefore, from another point of view, the actual number of players currently available in the national football team is actually very small, and the veterans still have an advantage over relatively young players in terms of numbers and strength, which is also the biggest difficulty for the national football team to carry out the "new and old replacement" work.
"Alternating between the old and the new" is really helpless
In fact, as early as 2017, "the replacement of the old and the new" is one of the most important tasks of the national football team. At that time, the national football team fell short in the 2018 World Preliminary Round of 12, and the risk of aging of the team lineup has begun to appear. Coupled with the fact that the Chinese Super League at that time did not produce eye-catching newcomers for many years, many people have foreseen that the national football team that still has Gao Lin, Feng Xiaoting and Zheng Zhi is likely to be surpassed by latecomers in the next few years. I didn't expect it to be a slur.
Since Lippi, the replacement of the old and new national football has been very slow. Although Lippi once promoted players such as Wei Shihao, He Chao, Yang Liyu, Gao Zhunyi, Huang Zichang and even Wang Jingbin into the national football team, and carried out a drastic reform of rejuvenation, the performance of some newcomers was indeed eye-catching, but in the end, these players were either due to their own strength defects, or were affected by injuries and off-field factors, and they could not become the national brand generals who could stand alone, and even some people have "lost everyone". Until today, only the post-00s young player Zhu Chenjie has become a stable member of the national football team.
Under such circumstances, from the late stage of Lippi's coaching, the overall lineup of the national football team has begun to age rapidly, and even become a "stubborn disease" that cannot be cured. In the 2019 Asian Cup, Lippi led the most "old" national football team; in the Qatar World Cup Qualifier Round of 40, Lippi's players were once again dominated by 30+ veterans. When Li Tie succeeded as the coach of the national football team, with the further increase in the age of the original players, and several "Brazilian" naturalized players who were also 30+ years old officially entered the national football team, the entire team continued to slide into the abyss of aging.
This time, Li Xiaopeng added several young players to the big list, not so much to train new recruits, but to say that it is really helpless. If it were not for the refusal of several naturalized players to return to the national football team, if it were not for the fact that the national football team had no desire or desire, Li Xiaopeng would not dare to use new people so "boldly", after all, the "younger generation" of Chinese football has some strength, which has been verified in the past few years. Of course, the irony is that even so, the average age of the national football team is still close to 29 years old, which shows how difficult it is to achieve the goal of "alternating the old and the new".
Preparations for the Asian Cup are not optimistic
From the perspective of "strategy", the focus of the national football team has actually shifted to the local Asian Cup held next year. With the strength of the national football team, the players who continue to rely on the top 12 will certainly not be able to make a difference in the Asian Cup, so we must expect the newcomers to grow up as soon as possible. However, with the limited use of two round of 12 matches, how many exercise opportunities can newcomers get? What's more, under the requirements of the superiors to "not collapse", Li Xiaopeng, who has just experienced two consecutive defeats, dares to give the newcomers how much time to appear?
It's all an unknown question. But what is certain is that the long-term lack of so-called "young talents" will inevitably make the national football team continue to rely on the performance of veterans when it comes to the Asian Cup next year. At that time, although we may see names like Zhang Yuning, Zhu Chenjie or Dai Weijun in the starting list of the national football team; the real backbone will undoubtedly be Wu Xi, Wu Lei, and even old faces like Axon.
Considering today's environment, if the national football team is still difficult to carry out international warm-up matches after the end of the round of 12, it means that the opportunity to "train" the team is very rare. As the host of the Asian Cup, the national football team will obviously not be willing to do nothing in next year's competition, at least on the basis of the top 8; but for now, even if the national football team hopes to take a small step forward, it will take extremely hard work. in Allgäu