Chinese football has once again fallen outside the World Cup finals. And this time the fall, especially left the fans feeling powerless and speechless - everything seemed to be doomed, just waiting for the failure to come. In recent years, Chinese football has reached a trough, whether it is the achievements of the men's national teams or the situation of leagues at all levels, there is little good news.
At the same time, the criticism, ridicule, and scolding of the national football team continue to be continuous, as if only these noises are the voices of the national football team out of the circle.
When the national football team ended the World Preliminary Tournament, Xinhua News Agency specially posted: Losing is not terrible, what is terrible is that losing does not bring about the awakening and improvement that should be there. Chinese football is likely to enter the vicious circle of losing and then losing, so it is necessary to reflect more rationally, clarify the status quo, find the crux of the problem, and then truly find a clear direction of development.
So, what is the lesson that Chinese football should sum up and summarize? Do we still have hopes for the next ten or twenty years? Red Star News adopted the same question and answer method, interviewing the former manager of the national football team, the former international football team and the senior domestic footnotes. We hope that the thinking and insights of these insiders and witnesses can point directly to the lesion and give one or two good medicines. Perhaps, this can help Chinese football, which is plagued by chronic diseases and new diseases.
The above is the original intention and meaning of our series of reports on "asking the way to the national football team".
After successively launching the Milu interview and Ma Dexing's "Ask the Way National Football" interview, today, Red Star News conducted an exclusive interview with Li Bing, a former famous international, former coach of the national youth team and member of the Technical Committee of the Chinese Football Association.
Li Bing according to IC photo
The national football team once again missed the World Cup, as a Chinese football star, the best player in the first professional league in 1994, Li Bing will naturally feel disappointed. But at the same time, he also calmly analyzed that at this stage, the national football team can not play in the World Cup is normal, it is abnormal to go in, "When I was in the national youth team, I brought players from the 89 age group, the 91 age group, the 93 age group and the 95 age group, they were the main members of the World Preliminary Tournament, but at that time in the national youth team, these age groups could not rush out of Asia, so how to hope that they would impact the World Cup after they became adults? ”
Li Bing, who has a deep understanding of the Chinese Super League and youth training, also gave his own suggestions in the interview: "Improve the youth training system, including the youth training competition system and the youth coach training system." Chinese footballers clip their tails, bow their heads, and do something down-to-earth so that Chinese football can return to the first class in Asia in about a decade and maintain the level of the top six in Asia for a long time. If this can be done, entering the World Cup will be a matter of course! ”
Red Star News: What do you think about this national football team out?
Li Bing: It is not surprising that we are out, according to the current strength of the national football team in Asian football, we do not have the ability to reach the final round of the World Cup. Although it may be a little difficult to accept this, under normal circumstances, the current national football team cannot go out.
Li Bing shakes hands with Gao Hongbo Infographic
Red Star News: Chinese football has repeatedly impacted the World Cup failure, what do you think is the reason?
Li Bing: The core reason is still insufficient ability. From the initial stage of youth training, the establishment of the system is not perfect, resulting in our current inability to cultivate excellent young players. A player is not good in youth training, and when it comes to the top, you ask him to produce results, and he is even less capable of doing it.
For example, our U series national team, which has not entered the final four in Asia for more than a decade, has been absent from the World Junior Championship and the World Youth Championship. When I was a coach in the national brand, the players in the 89, 91, 93 and 95 years old were all brought, and these age groups were actually the main players in this world cup, but these age groups did not rush out of Asia when they were in the national youth team, so how can we hope that they will impact the World Cup when they become adults?
To find the reason why Chinese football has repeatedly impacted the Failure of the World Cup, in fact, the youth training has not been done well, and the foundation has not been laid well! We push back ten years, our Professional League in China is relatively hot, which relies on the investment of various clubs in the professional league to bring in a lot of high-level foreign aid and coaches, and they have brought the heat of the whole league up. But at the same time, our young players in China have not been given more opportunities to exercise in the so-called "sixth league of the world" in the Chinese Super League. Coupled with the previous time when football was popular, everyone was investing in the front line, investing money in foreign aid and foreign teachers, and about 95% of the investment of a club every year was placed on the first team and placed on the reinforcements, but this was not in line with the law of the market, and there was no emphasis on the section of youth football, including the construction of the youth football system and the improvement of the level of youth coaching. For example, there is no attractive income to encourage good coaches to devote themselves to youth training and help children lay a good foundation. Without these benign contents, it is impossible to establish a system that can improve the ability of Chinese players.
Red Star News: Is the role of naturalized players in this World Preliminary Tournament big? Should the naturalization policy of Chinese football continue?
Li Bing: This World Preliminary Tournament can be said to have used naturalized players at an inopportune time. There are several reasons for this, the Chinese Football Association has previously organized several research groups for the Chinese Super League, as a member of the Technical Committee of the Chinese Football Association, I am also a member of the research group, so I have done a more detailed investigation of the Chinese Super League in 2020 and 2021, and I have seen all the matches in the Chinese Super League and made corresponding analysis. 2020 is the first time that the Chinese Super League has implemented the tournament system after the epidemic, but the investment of various clubs and the use of foreign aid are still carried out in accordance with the standards of previous years, which should be said to be relatively normal, especially the competition in the top eight championship groups is very fierce. Therefore, at that time, the club's security and foreign aid were better invested on the field, and the foreign aid of each team did show a very high standard.
However, in 2021, the tournament system will continue to be implemented, coupled with some environmental factors, the clubs have reduced their investment at once. This leads to good foreign aid either leaving or not investing enough. Even some clubs, in the case of operational difficulties, do not use foreign aid much, and take young players to train. Therefore, according to the survey results, the quality of the 2021 season of the Chinese Super League is very low, and there is a big gap between the technical and tactical content and the intensity of confrontation compared with the previous year. In this process, these players who are naturalized in Chinese football have not played much in the 2021 Chinese Super League, and only Jiang Guangtai's number of games is guaranteed, resulting in these naturalized players not reflecting their value and maintaining their status in a complete league. In addition, there is also a situation of returning to Brazil on vacation in the middle, and after they return from vacation, they have also experienced a long period of isolation, and their physical condition is not ideal. Therefore, according to the test of the physical function of the players, it was difficult for the national football coach to let them play the full 90 minutes, or even the start.
In fact, these naturalized players are capable, but because of these objective reasons, they have not come up with the best state to help the national football team. The quality of our league and the status of naturalized players have seriously declined in the World Cup year, which is really very, very unfavorable to Chinese football, which can be summed up as a pity that these players we naturalized did not come up with the best state at the best time.
As for whether the naturalization policy should continue, I think that since Chinese football has begun to implement this policy, it cannot be completely denied because of the defeat of this World Preliminary Tournament. I remember that when I represented the national football team at the 1992 Asian Games in Hiroshima, Japanese football was using naturalized players, and they had been holding out for a long time. I think that since I have taken this step, I can continue to move forward. But then again, the whole of Chinese football should be improved, and it cannot rely on naturalization alone. It should be while pushing the naturalization policy forward benignly, and more importantly, how to find ways to improve the quality of our local players. Without this, even if the next edition we continue to introduce naturalized players in a large area and invest heavily, and enter the World Cup, I don't think this is the success of Chinese football. Therefore, naturalized players can only be complementary, and how to make them combine with local players is the most important. But the core strength of Chinese football should always be our local players.
Naturalized players Alain and Luo Guofu according to IC photo
Red Star News: What is the fundamental crux of Chinese football? You just highlighted youth training, but what about the policy aspect?
Li Bing: Since we are engaged in professional football, what should we see its development law? In terms of the cognition of professional football and the cognition of education, we do have a big gap compared with the well-developed regions of the world football. We also have a lot of children in China who like to play football, but they really don't have that much time to touch football. So in this case, how do we combine the relationship between football and education, of course, this involves the big strategic scope.
From a professional point of view, I think there are two things that need to be done and must be done. First, improve the level of our youth training, and truly let high-level coaches sink to the front line of youth training to lead the team; second, we must establish a relatively perfect youth event system, without which Chinese football still cannot develop. I have also visited European countries in the past, and other people's youth players have been participating in the official U series national league since they were 8 years old, from a league with a wednesday practice plus weekend to a thursday practice, a five practice plus a weekend league... You can play more than 30 official league games of the U series in a year. Coupled with the various traditional youth tournaments held during the winter and summer vacations, their youth players, from the age of 8 to 16, can participate in fifty or sixty fast-paced, high-end matches a year, almost the same number of games that professional players participate in each year! This order of magnitude of practical accumulation, by the age of 18 or so physically, can immediately find a place in the professional league. And what about our youth players? There is no such condition, so youth training is not a coach who takes a group of children there every day to practice their skills, or develops youth football!
Red Star News: How can Chinese football save itself?
Li Bing: This salvation depends on which step of salvation it takes? I think that Chinese football has now reached the lowest point since we have known football, how far can it be? Although it is the worst stage, we still have a lot of football people to continue to do this work, and everyone should clip their tails, bow their heads and do something down-to-earth now. As long as we do it seriously, everyone will do their job well, and it will definitely be better than it is now. Since Chinese football has reached the bottom, it will definitely slowly go up, which requires the efforts of many of us, we football people, the fans who formulate the development policy of Chinese football, and the public opinion objectively realize that we are indeed lagging behind now, and everyone can start from the basics to develop. Football is not a one-day, two-day thing, it does take three years and five years, eight years and ten years to see the effect. So, let's be patient. I personally still have confidence in Chinese football, as long as I improve some things, do everything that should be done, and don't expect some higher goals. For example, if we set a goal, can we return to the top of Asian football in about ten years? If we spend ten years working towards this goal, starting from youth training and establishing various mechanisms, I think it is still very promising.
Li Bing Infographic
Red Star News: Do you think that in the past ten or twenty years, China still has any hope of entering the World Cup?
Li Bing: Of course there is hope! First of all, as I just said, if we can return to the first class in Asia in about ten years, it means that we can enter the top six in Asia, and now the World Cup in Asia is 4.5 places, and the top six have 75% of the hope of entering the World Cup, not to mention that Asia has 8.5 places in the World Cup after that! If we can maintain the first-class level in the top six in Asia, even if football has accidents, we did not rush in the next edition, but as long as the level does not decline, the next edition should always go in, right?! We don't just aim at one game, one event, we want to hope for a qualitative change in the overall level, even if it is not the first, second, or third place in Asia, but as long as it reaches four or five or six, our opportunity will come out.
So don't take whether to enter the World Cup as the only criterion for judging Chinese football, as long as the overall level rises, entering the World Cup is a matter of course. When I was a player, even if we went on for many years, we really didn't win the Asian championship, the highest peak was the second place in the Asian Cup and the Asian Games, but the Chinese team could often get the third and fourth place results in asian competitions at that time, that is, the first-class level in Asia. In 2001, Japan and South Korea did not participate in the World Cup as world cup hosts, and the Chinese team successfully obtained the right to qualify. So only when this level is reached, the Chinese team has real competitiveness!
Red Star News reporter Jiang Shan
Edited by Ou Peng
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