Reporter Chen Yong reported that on April 3, the national football team returned to China after the end of the journey to West Asia, the Qatar World Cup Asian Top 12 has become history, the next task of the national football team is the 2023 Asian Cup and preparations for the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, in the future, the national football team will enter the rhythm of reconstruction.
There is a lot of work to be done in the reconstruction, and as far as the player level is concerned, it generally includes three aspects: replacement, mental adjustment, and state improvement, and around these three aspects, in fact, it includes the two common topics of concern, such as staying in the west and naturalizing.
In the 10 round of 12 matches, the national football team played a total of 31 players, in order of playing time, namely: Yan Junling, Zhang Linpeng, Wu Xi, Wang Shenchao, Zhu Chenjie, Wu Lei, Jiang Guangtai, Xu Xin, Zhang Yuning, Axon, Alan, Arthur Junmin, Zheng Zheng, Wang Gang, Jin Jingdao, Dai Weijun, Luo Guofu, Gao Zhunyi, Liao Lisheng, Liu Binbin, Zhang Xizhe, Wei Shihao, Li Ang, Liu Yang, Yu Dabao, Wu Xinghan, Yin Hongbo, Chi Zhongguo, Gao Tianyi, Barton, Deng Hanwen.
The age structure of the 31 players who played was —
3 players before the age group of 89: Arthur Junmin, Luo Guofu, Yu Dabao;
9 players in the 89 age group: Zhang Linpeng, Wu Xi, Wang Shenchao, Axon, Alan, Zheng Zheng, Wang Gang, Yin Hongbo, Chi Zhongguo;
4 players in the 91 age group: Yan Junling, Wu Lei, Jin Jingdao (1992), Zhang Xizhe;
6 players in the 93 age group: Jiang Guangtai (1994), Xu Xin (1994), Liao Lisheng, Liu Binbin, Li Ang, Wu Xinghan;
5 players in the 95 age group: Gao Zhunyi, Wei Shihao, Liu Yang, Barton, Deng Hanwen;
2 players in the age group of 97: Zhang Yuning and Gao Tianyi (1998);
2 players in the age group of 99: Zhu Chenjie (2000) and Dai Weijun.
The number of players over the age of 30 reached 16, 51.6%, which is relatively high. In recent years, the national football team has been the team with the highest average age among many national teams in Asia, from the Asian Cup in 2019 to the Qatar World Cup Asian Zone Top 40, as well as the Round of 12.
There are 17 players who play more than 200 minutes, of the 17 players, only Zhu Chenjie, Jiang Guangtai, Xu Xin, Zhang Yuning and Dai Weijun are less than 30 years old, the remaining 12 players are over 30 years old, only Yan Junling, Wu Lei and Jin Jingdao are 3 players in the 91 age group, and the remaining 9 players are 33 years old and above.
In theory, the 1989 age group players will still be useful in the 2023 Asian Cup, when they are 34 years old and should be able to maintain a good state, but by the time of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, it may be that except for a very few players, other players will fade out of the national team, just like the 2022 World Cup qualifiers, when there were no players in the 1985 age group.
In the final stage of the Round of 12, that is, before the final two rounds of competition, Li Xiaopeng recruited a number of young players, including Zhang Yuning, Tong Lei and Yang Liyu (1997), Gao Tianyi, Duan Liuyu, Yan Dinghao (1998), Guo Tianyu, Dai Weijun, Han Jiaqi (1999), Zhu Chenjie, Jiang Shenglong, wu Shaocong (2000). Among these 12 players, Zhang Yuning is considered an "old international", and some of the young players who were recruited only participated in the training of the national team and did not enter the list of the national team, such as Duan LiuYu, Han Jiaqi, Jiang Shenglong and Wu Shaocong.
In the final stage of the round of 12, Zhang Yuning in the center position, Dai Weijun in the attacking end of the midfield and Zhu Chenjie in the back line were important players of the national football team, and Gao Tianyi also got the opportunity to play. There is not much of a problem with the replacement of the national football team, after all, there are many players with good strength in the 93 and 95 age groups, but it is undeniable that after the replacement, the overall strength of the national football team (only considering the technical and tactical level) will inevitably decline by a certain extent.
In this case, naturalization is a hot topic, at present, Jiang Guangtai continues to play for the national football team is not a big problem, Li ke needs to see the follow-up progress, as for Axon, Alan, Fernando, Luo Guofu, these 4 Brazilian naturalized players may have no small difficulties, of which Luo Guofu has returned to the Brazilian league to play, Axon is also close to Gremio, Fernando has not yet played for the national team.
In the short term, the original naturalized players are able to consider the choice of increasing strength, in addition to these original naturalized players, the possibility of naturalizing new players is minimal, there are few players who meet the naturalization conditions in the Chinese Super League, like Oscar of cangzhou lions, who previously expressed his reluctance to accept naturalization in an interview with foreign media, but hoped to represent the democratic Congo national team. In fact, the best naturalization object for the 2022 World Cup qualifier is Teixeira, and the potential naturalization object for the 2026 World Cup is Guedes, but one has become a thing of the past, and the other has returned to Brazil, and it has become no longer possible.
Comprehensive analysis of the causes of the defeat of the national football team at the technical and tactical level of the top 12 matches can actually be simply boiled down to one point: the state of the international team is very bad, and there are serious problems in adapting to the rhythm of the game and the intensity of the game.
The first game of the national football team against Australia was knocked out of the three sticks because of the inability to adapt to the rhythm and intensity, these three sticks directly destroyed the confidence and morale of the national football team, in the subsequent 9 games, although the national football team occasionally had a good performance, but also did not adapt to the rhythm and intensity of the game as a whole, not only far less than Japan, Australia and Saudi Arabia, compared with Oman and Vietnam, there is also a big gap in adapting to the rhythm and intensity. Improving the quality of the league is an effective way, but at present, the loss of foreign aid in the league is relatively large, and some Super League clubs are even carrying out an extreme rejuvenation strategy, and the decline in the quality of the league is inevitable.
During the round of 12, the players who performed better in the midfield were Zhang Yuning, Wu Lei and Dai Weijun, Zhang Yuning had experience in staying in the West, Dai Weijun was a product of overseas youth training, and Wu Lei was staying in the Ocean. It can be said that staying in the ocean is the best way for national football players to improve their state of play, and for young players, they can also improve their ability to play.
Guo Tianyu Liuyang encountered many obstacles, after two months before the final trip, at this time the Portuguese Premier League round has run out, Wu Lei said in an interview still hope to stay overseas to play, but many sources have shown that Wu Lei's return to the harbor is also one of the options. It is unlikely that too much of a breakthrough will be made in terms of staying in the west, and what can improve the status of players in the future can only be the health of the league.
In the national team's top 12 round of the journey, the international footballers performance ups and downs, in general, the international footballers can be said to be hard, but the spiritual level of things, not only the fighting spirit, peace and self-confidence mentality is actually more important, but it is not difficult to see from the game, the expression on the faces of the international footballers is very solemn, which is also the reason why Milu said that they "want to end quickly", the fact is probably the same, and even we can say that I am afraid that in the hearts of many international footballers, they do not want to represent the national team.
Li Xiaopeng said: "Our players are very confident in the club and play well against the best foreign players in the world. After putting on the national team jersey, the opponent is Messi? Is it C Luo? In the league, they can face Fellaini, Paulinho, Talista and Augusto. Defenders can cope with Teixeira, Oscar, Hulk and Pele. But when it comes to the national team, in the face of some people we may not be able to name, they are a bit more than enough and insufficient, which is difficult for me to accept, and they have psychological problems. ”
Of course, the current Chinese football environment is not good, the "abnormal" league and club salary arrears changed to the tournament system will affect the players, it is not easy to maintain the state, the state is not, let alone the mentality? Mentality is an extremely complex issue, including but not limited to the external environment, public opinion environment, management situation, head coach style, team internal atmosphere, opponents and other levels, of course, more important is the strength, therefore, the national team's psychological problems may be difficult to be completely solved.
In other words, if the psychological problems of the national team are solved, it means that all the problems that plague the national team have been basically solved, and Chinese football can embark on the normal road of development. In the face of complex and systematic reconstruction projects, I am afraid that the solution for the present can only be younger, after all, young people are more energetic and more eager.