In the AFC Champions League group stage that ended last night, Shandong Taishan, who played in the pure youth army, lost 2:3 to singapore league champions Lion City Sailors.
However, in the face of failure, domestic fans "unprecedented" a wave of praise. This is absolutely unprecedented in the field of Chinese men's football at this stage.
As for the simple reason - in the face of the Singapore Premier League hegemony team with a number of singapore national team absolute main players and four foreign aides, the average age of only 19 years old Taishan youngsters showed the hard work and technical and tactical progress in the game, and the fans across the country are looking at it. Scoring two goals in the game surprised all the fans who followed these youngsters.
In this AFC Champions League, due to special circumstances, the Taishan team can only send a group of U21 players to participate. The oldest of the teams is only 22 years old and the youngest is only 17 years old. Many players do not say that the Experience of the Chinese Super League and the Chinese First Division is that they have not played in the professional league. No one is optimistic about this young Taishan U21 elite team, even the Taishan fans themselves, the expectation of the team is only not to lose like a mountain, a collapse of thousands of miles of artificial tragedy.
And the goals set by the young players recruited by the club are also very low-key: to try to express themselves, to play out of spirit, to play out of style. The small goal is to score a goal, draw a game and get a point.
In the first match against South Korean team Daegu FC, the fledgling lads were hit with a smouldering stick and were bloodied by their opponents 0:7. Objectively speaking, this score is not a reaction to the real strength comparison between the two sides. Premature loss of the ball and unnecessary mistakes completely disrupted the mentality of the youngsters, resulting in the deformation of technical movements on the field and frequent mistakes in defense. It ended up causing a rout.
This painful defeat pushed the young players to the cusp of the storm, because the goalkeeper Cao Zheng, who conceded a second goal due to a low-level mistake, became the object of ridicule and insults from the media and fans. These young players, who have faced the AFC Champions League for the first time in official competitions, are facing unprecedented pressure.
In the second game against the Japanese powerhouse Urawa Red Diamonds, many people predicted with bad intentions before the game that in this game, the Taishan team is likely to completely collapse, resulting in a long-lasting tragedy that has lost face.
However, the lads of the Taishan U21 Elite Team used their own performance to punch these people in the face. Compared to conceding an early goal in the first game, the team's goal was held until the 25th minute before losing it. At the end of the game, the Taishan team lost 0:5, although it was still a big loss, but the team's progress was obvious to all. Among the five goals lost, there was a penalty and an almost unsolvable free-kick world wave.
In the third game, facing the relatively weak Lion City sailors, the Taishan U21 elite team finally ushered in its own highlight moment - with the iron-blooded defense of the three armies, the Taishan team forced a 0:0 draw with the opponent, the first clean sheet in three games, and also won the first point of the Youth Army AFC Champions League!
Three days later, the back-to-back match with the Lion City sailors, the Tarzan youngsters who have proved that they can "defend", want to prove that they can "attack"! After achieving the two goals of drawing a game and scoring a point, the eyes of the Tarzan youngsters are on scoring a goal!
Inspired by this small goal, the Tarzan players were obviously more active in the offensive end of the game, and invested more offensive troops. The most intuitive feeling of this game for fans is that the quality of Taishan's counterattack is higher, and the players obviously want to pay attention to cooperation. After the ball was broken at the back, it was no longer a blind big foot to drive out, but tried to threaten the opposing back line through the combination of passes.
Head coach Yu Yuanwei's tactical goal is clear - it is impractical to qualify from the group, so the goal of this game is to score goals! The last game has proved that the team can stick a fence, and this game must prove that it also has a fang that can pierce the heart of the opponent!
0:2 behind should be something that everyone expected, including Yu Yuanwei's guidance also understands that since he wants to make achievements at the offensive end, it is very likely that the defensive end will lose sight of one or the other. It turns out that the bloodiness of Yu Yuanwei's guidance is respectable - after falling behind 0:1, he decisively removed the rear gate Lin Guoyu and replaced it with the attacker Liu Guobao.
The message conveyed to the players on the field was very clear -
Losing one is also losing, losing two is also losing! Lao Tzu is out, that is, to bite a piece of meat on you!
It was from this moment that the hidden offensive nature of the Tarzan U21 Elite team in the previous games was completely released! BaiHelamu, Yi Xianlong, Lu Yongtao and Liu Guobao retreated to defend significantly, and began to form a certain degree of coordination in the midfield. The Number of Times the Tarzan U21 Elite team has broken into the 30-meter area of the Lion City Mariners' backfield has increased significantly.
It turns out that the phrase "barefoot is not afraid to wear shoes" applies equally well on the football field. The Lion City Mariners, who had no temper at all in the last game by the biting defense of the Taishan Elite Team,did not expect that these children who were not afraid of heaven would dare to attack out. Lu Yongtao's breakthrough surprised Harun, in the direct dialogue between the two field captains, the younger Lu Yongtao made Harun busy, and in a hurry, he could only rely on fouls to block the opponent's breakthrough, but forgot that he was already in his own penalty area. As a result, this foul was caught squarely by the referee.
Standing twelve yards in front, the young Lu Yongtao's face could not help but be a little nervous, after all, this may be the most significant penalty in his career, and whether he can successfully score is also of great significance to this young team. However, despite the tension, Lu Yongtao's penalty was impeccable, perfectly deceiving the opposing goalkeeper and jumping straight into the net. After 345 minutes of waiting, The Taishan Elite team's first goal in the AFC Champions League history finally came!
The biggest characteristic of young people is instability, and not long after scoring a historic first goal, a senseless mistake in the back line gave the opponent another goal. Many fans lamented that the goal was only a flash in the pan. Scoring a goal is hard to pin down, but conceding it is so easy.
However, the morale of the Taishan Elite team youngsters who broke the window paper of the goal has clearly risen. Lu Yongtao's goal gave them hope, at least we still have the strength to fight, we can also choose to charge like a warrior!
The young players who have already killed the blood are no longer satisfied with relying on a penalty to maintain their face! For the real sense of sports battle goals, charge!
In the 89th minute, the historical moment that really belonged to the Taishan elite team youngsters finally arrived, yiXianlong, who had previously performed well, got the ball on the right side of the front field, passed the ball to Liu Guobao in the penalty area from the gap between the two defenders of the opposing team, Liu Guobao, who was only 18 weeks old, showed maturity and calmness far beyond his age, after shaking the opposing defender by his body, his left foot exploded into the goal, and the football hit the bottom of the opponent's goal beam like a cannonball, and the Lion City Mariners goalkeeper could only look at the ball and sigh!
Two-time AFC Champions League, the first sports goal of the Chinese Super League team! It is also the first time in two years that a Chinese Super League club has scored two goals in a single game.
From an objective point of view, such results are really bleak, and the former "World Sixth League" has fallen to the point of rejoicing for two goals, and the contrast is so great that Chinese fans are sighing. The Fact that the Chinese men's soccer team has pulled its wheels to this point is really heart-wrenching.
However, we should be soberly aware that while our men's football level is stagnant, or even rapidly regressive, Southeast Asian football, which we used to regard as a fish belly, is rising rapidly. The Lion City Mariners, who just beat Daegu FC 3-0 a few days ago, are not as tough as we thought. What's more, although the Taishan Elite team is staring at the name of U21, the average age of the players is only 19.5 years old, while the average age of the opponent is 29.7 years old, which is the golden age of football players. The main players of the Taishan U21 did not all compete, but the opponents were five Singapore internationals, four foreign players and a Korean naturalized player! The main striker Jin Xinyu once played for Shanghai Shenhua in the Chinese Super League and is also a powerful center forward who scores a lot.
The gap is obvious, and the hard wound of strength is difficult to bridge. This is an indisputable fact and cannot be denied.
But these young players, who have hardly even played in the professional league, have shown a bright sword spirit in this AFC Champions League, which is really amazing. From 0:7 to 0:5 to 0:0, until this game finally scored, the youngsters are growing and improving every game, which has obviously reached the good intentions of the club, and also fiercely smoked the faces of the trolls who clamored for "sending young people out to be masochistic". If a slap is not loud, then give you a more crisp backhand!
Young, just so proud!
Previously, the Chinese men's football team has been reduced to the bottom of Asia's third-rate team. The results of the national team have plummeted, the league has been dismembered and fragmented, and the youth system training has collapsed in an all-round way. The wave of ideas brought about by Jinyuan football continues to impact and erode Chinese football. From the club to the national team level, investors want to benefit in the short term, and the national team wants to achieve results in the short term, but very few investors and decision makers may lay down their bodies to cultivate youth training. Under the impact of a wave of utilitarian football, the Shandong Taishan team, which has been vigorously grasping the training of youth training for decades, has become a rare stream in the Chinese football industry. The more outstanding performance of the Taishan elite team in the AFC Champions League has proved to the Chinese people that Chinese is not that they cannot play football well, but we have not found the right direction to move forward. If there are ten clubs in Chinese football that attach importance to youth training and scientific youth training like Taishan, why can't Chinese football develop?