In mid-December last year, EAFA announced that the 9th East Asian Football Championship and the 8th Women's East Asian Football Championship would be held in China from July 19 to 27, 2022. However, at that time, there was no official announcement of the host city of the event, and other specific information was pending.
Previous East Asian Cup events have adopted a rotation system, that is, China, Japan and South Korea take turns to select cities to host the event. According to today's latest news, the Chinese Football Association has clearly stated to the East Asian Football Federation that it will not be able to host the 2022 East Asian Cup due to the impact of the epidemic. At the same time, the Chinese Football Association said it would assign U23 to participate in the competition, aiming to train troops for the Asian Games in September.
(2019 East Asian Cup China Men's Football Team)
(2019 East Asian Cup China Women's Football Team)
This is not the first time that the Chinese Football Association has sent teams of non-Chinese men's football teams to participate in the East Asian Cup. The Chinese men's soccer team that competed in the 2019 East Asian Cup is actually a national football selection team led by Li Tie. The real Chinese men's football team was under the command of Lippi at that time, preparing for the World Preliminary Round of 40.
One of the reasons why the performance of the 2019 national football selection team in the East Asian Cup has attracted much attention is that fans are eager to compare the national football selection team with the national football team, and it is best that the two teams can have a chance to face each other on the field.
But this scene did not appear, before the East Asian Cup, the warm-up matches arranged by the national football selection team were the U20 national youth team in 2019, the Wuhan Zhuoer team and the Tianjin Tianhai team.
A group of national team "marginal players", only trained twice, warm-up games one win, one draw and one loss, in such a preliminary preparation, the national football selection team won the third place in the East Asian Cup, in front of the Japanese and South Korean teams, the result does not seem to be bad.
(2019 East Asian Cup, China Men's Football Team won the third place)
But this third place is embarrassing.
First of all, there are only 4 teams participating in the East Asian Cup men's football competition, and the third place is naturally not a good result;
Secondly, China sent a national football selection team, but Japan and South Korea did not send the strongest national team lineup. Due to the conflict between the East Asian Cup and the European competition time, there are not many players in the Europa League in Japan and South Korea, taking the Japanese team participating in the 2019 East Asian Cup as an example, all the players in the 22-man squad are from their own leagues, and 12 of them are U22 players. There is no problem in saying that this Japanese team is called the "third team", but the players in its big list are already twice the value of the national football team at that time, and Nakagawa Ishito is the local golden boot of the Japanese professional federation...
In the final match with Japan, the national football team was 1-2 against the opponent. To know that in the first leg of the past twelve rounds of the national football team and Japan can pose a threat to the then state of Japan, but in the end two legs by the opponent to clean sheets against Japan, and then the last match of the national football team so far to win Japan was turned over, it was in the 1998 Danas Cup (the predecessor of the East Asian Cup) to win, although Fan Zhiyi lost a penalty, but with Li Bing's two degrees, the country was enough to win 2-0 against the opponent, This victory 24 years ago has also become the last good memory of Chinese fans in the history of Sino-Japanese football confrontation.
In the face of the equally strong South Korean team, the national football team also played a bloody game in the East Asian Final Four! 10 years of Gao Hongbo's national football team in the East Asian Cup 3-0 defeat to South Korea, the national football team at that time also had a sharp and smooth counterattack, then Gao Lin was not a "plane" brother, then Deng Zhuoxiang was to break the goal of two consecutive backwards as the end of the national football team only took 15 seconds to attack, even if the opponent South Korea is not the strongest lineup, but the 3-0 score also more or less proved the ability of the national football team at that time...
It can be seen that for the East Asian Cup, whether it is the national football team or Japan, South Korea actually has the meaning of training young players in it, and the stage of the East Asian Final Four as a testing ground for passing the gang may be much better. Today's news pointed out that the U23 national football team will become the key guarantee point of the football association's national brand, so how to make good use of this stage will also become a key step.
To say that this time, the Chinese Football Association's decision to send the U23 national football team to participate in the East Asian Cup is finally in line with the pace of other participating teams. Coupled with the fact that many teams are inclined to set the manager early, it will help build a stable team lineup, so this East Asian Cup will be the closest rehearsal to the Asian Games.
The current coach of South Korea's U23 men's soccer team is the "most familiar stranger" of Chinese fans - Huang Shanhong. In the 2017 AFC Champions League, he was the head coach of Shanghai Harbour group stage rival Seoul FC. Later, he briefly coached the Chinese club. At the end of 2018, Huang Shanhong became the manager of the Chinese First Division team Yanbian Fude, leading the team to pre-season training in South Korea, only to receive the news of the club's bankruptcy, so he did not play a single official game, and his teaching in China ended.
In September last year, the Korean Football Association officially announced that Hwang Sun-hong took over the South Korean U23 men's football team, which he will lead to participate in this year's U23 Asian Cup and Hangzhou Asian Games, with the goal of entering the Paris Olympic Games. The Contract given by the Korean Football Association to Hwang Sun-hong by the end of 2024 has a "mid-term assessment" in the contract, and it is the performance of the South Korean U23 men's football team at the Asian Games that will directly affect whether Hwang Sun-hung continues to lead the team to the Olympic Games.
In the eyes of the Korean Football Association, the U23 Asian Cup, the Asian Games, and the Olympic Games are completely connected, the Olympic Games are the ultimate goal, and the others are all platforms for examining Hwang Sun-hong. For China U23 men's football coach Jankovic, the East Asian Cup is an inspection, and the Asian Games is the ultimate goal.
Judging from the sending U23 to the East Asian Cup alone, we have caught up with the rhythm of The first teams in Asia, but from the perspective of the overall consideration of international competitions, our consciousness is still divided from each game.
For the U23 men's football team, the East Asian Cup event is between the Dubai Cup and the Asian Games, adding another opportunity to participate in international events, but for the U23 women's football team, this decision is somewhat abrupt. In the 2019 East Asian Cup, Jia Xiuquan took the Chinese women's football team to the field, and Wang Shuang, Li Ying, and Tang Jiali were all listed, and finally won the third place.
If the qualification for this competition is also handed over to the U23 women's football team, then the participants will most likely be selected in the U23 women's football elite training camp that ended a training camp last month. Among the players participating in the training camp, the Shanghai Rural Commercial Bank women's football team occupied 3 seats, namely Yang Qian, Wang Linlin and Fang Jie, and the coaching team included Meng Jun, Wang Hongliang, Zhang Na, Zang Haili, Zhu Jianmin, Yin Xiaofeng, Yang Tao and others.
At the end of the training, Wang Hongliang and Meng Jun, coaches of the U23 Women's Elite Training Camp, said an inspiring sentence in an interview - I believe that there will be people as good as Gu Ailing in the future among these players.
After the decision to send U23 teams to participate in the East Asian Cup, the U23 men's football team can continue to adjust on the basis of the existing lineup and the problems exposed by the Dubai Cup, but this decision is relatively sudden for the U23 women's football team, and the East Asian Cup will become the first venue to test the results of the U23 women's elite training camp. It is imperative to consider how to balance these players between league and training in accordance with the plan of leaving overseas in mid-July.