The Paper's reporter Song Chengliang
On June 23, FIFA officially updated the latest edition of the men's national team rankings, and the Chinese men's football team fell out of the top ten in Asia, ranking 78th in the world and 11th in Asia. This is also the worst ranking of the Chinese men's football team in the past four years.
After playing the round of twelve at the end of March this year, the construction of the national team has always been in a state of stagnation, and there are less than four weeks to go, and this year's national football team will only have the East Asian Cup to start, but until now, how to select teams to participate is still a mystery...
At present, the national football team does not even have a clue about the selection of the head coach, let alone carry out further work. Picture IC for this article
National football coach Li Xiaopeng has disappeared for a long time
According to the official website page of FIFA, the ranking of the 78th has created the worst world ranking of the national football team in the past four years, and in the past four years, the world ranking of the national football team has ranked 65th at the highest and 78th at the lowest.
In the year-end world rankings in 2021, the national football team ranked 74th in the world and the Asian level ranked 8th. After entering 2022, FIFA announced three world rankings in February, March and June, and the Chinese team continued to decline in these three rankings.
Due to the poor results of the previous round of 12 and the inability to schedule matches on the international matchday stipulated by FIFA in early June this year, the continuous decline in the national football ranking is expected. What worries the industry even more is that after playing the top 12 matches, the construction of the entire national team has suddenly come to a standstill due to subjective and objective factors.
On the one hand, considering that the current situation is not suitable for international competitions, and the need to make time for the Chinese Super League to play, the Chinese team did not arrange matches on the international match days in June and September this year. On the other hand, the management of the entire national team is not in the hands of the Chinese Football Association, which has led to the fact that there is still no clear statement on the most direct issue of the head coach to stay.
According to the "Sports Weekly" report, after returning home from the round of 12 Saisia and Australia in November last year, the management of the Chinese men's national football team is no longer in the hands of the Chinese Football Association, but a "leadership working group" has been set up by the Higher General Administration of Sports, with the relevant leaders personally serving as the team leader, and comprehensively retaking over the Chinese men's national football team, like head coach Li Xiaopeng is not hired by the Chinese Football Association, but personally selected by a higher-level department.
Under such circumstances, Li Xiaopeng, who is now the head coach of the national team, the issue of his whereabouts and retention is not decided by the Chinese Football Association at all, but by a higher level of authority. But now, the higher authorities have no intention of asking questions about the Chinese men's national football team and head coach Li Xiaopeng, which has put Li Xiaopeng himself in an extremely embarrassing situation.
A detail worth paying attention to is that in the past, in the process of the Chinese Super League, the head coach of the national team would personally visit the players, but this year, the Chinese Super League has begun 5 rounds, and the head coach of the national team, Li Xiaopeng, has disappeared from the public eye...
After the end of the round of 12, the work of the national football team came to a standstill.
The East Asian Cup teaming scheme that has been tossed several times
At the end of March, after the end of the 12th round of matches and the return of the national football team to China, the Chinese Football Association made a decision to replace the Chinese men's national team for the East Asian Cup according to the situation and situation at that time.
At that time, the consideration was that the Hangzhou Asian Games were about to start, the U23 men's football team needed more practical opportunities, in order to prepare for the Hangzhou Asian Games, the Chinese Football Association also planned to let Zhang Linpeng, Wu Xi and Zhang Yuning, three overage players, and the U23 men's football team compete in the East Asian Cup and asian games together.
Now, with the relocation of the East Asian Cup, the postponement of the Hangzhou Asian Games, and the relocation of the 2023 Asian Cup, a series of objective situations have undergone fundamental changes, forcing the Chinese Football Association to make new adjustments in the construction of the national team.
The first is the issue of recruiting overage players, because there is no Asian Games game this year, whether these three specific overage players are still needed needs to be re-discussed, after all, the ownership of the overage players in the Asian Games in a year's time will definitely change.
The second is the team model of the whole team, after Japan succeeded China as the host country of this East Asian Cup, the Japanese Football Association has previously said that it hopes that the Chinese Football Association can send stronger teams to participate in order to ensure the seriousness and importance of this event, after all, this is the highest level of the East Asian Football League.
Just as the AFC urged Chinese teams to send the strongest squad to play in the AFC Champions League, as the organizer of the event, Japan naturally does not want to see the elite event become a stage for the youth army.
Under the trade-off, the final solution given by the Chinese Football Association is to send a national selection team to the country, which is similar to the 2019 East Asian Cup.
At that time, Lippi suddenly resigned, the national team did not have time to choose a coach, and finally the Chinese Football Association let the head coach of the national second team Li Tie as the main coach, formed a national selection team to go to the East Asian Cup in South Korea, when Li Tie selected domestic competitive players in addition to the main team of the national team.
The head coach of the national selection team this time is the U23 national team head coach Jankovic, the team will still be based on the 1999 age group players, but the increase in over-age players will be much more than the previously expected 3 people, so that the team's combat effectiveness will also be improved to a certain extent.
The national team matches will have an impact on the ongoing Chinese Super League.
Japan and South Korea are quasi-main forces participating in the war, and the prospects of national football are worrying
So far, the list of the entire national selection team has not yet been announced, and even how many overage players to bring is still pending, which is also an imaginable result.
On the one hand, the league is underway and there may be injuries; On the other hand, players participating in the East Asian Cup are counted as games and quarantine, and they have to miss the league for at least 6 weeks, which is not counting the time it takes to recover their status, which will have a great impact on the club's play in the Chinese Super League, and once it involves relegation or title competition, it will also cause a certain unfairness.
Therefore, the Chinese Football Association is bound to negotiate with the club where the recruited players are located, and the final east Asian Cup participation list is destined to be a product of compromise and game between all parties.
For example, Zhang Yuning, an overage player who is now in high demand, from the first five rounds of the league, Zhang Yuning's one-man immediate combat strength accounts for more than 50% of the national security team, and once Zhang Yuning leaves the team, the strength of national security will decline subversively.
Although Shenhua does not have such an important single player, as a large number of national players in this age group, once there are about 5 players selected collectively, it will obviously have a great impact on the strength of the team.
In this regard, Shenhua head coach Wu Jingui said: "There is no official notice at present, we have also heard some news, we will definitely fully support the national team's game, cooperate with their work, as long as they look at our players, they will definitely actively transport, which is also the glory of our club." No matter how big the difficulties in the personnel, we will also find ways to overcome them. ”
The Chinese team lineup is undecided, and Japan and South Korea will basically send a fairly successful lineup to play, Andi Japanese coach Mori Baoichi has said that he will send the second team to the East Asian Cup, which is a survey of the Japanese team's marginal lineup for the World Cup, and I believe that all players will have great motivation.
The South Korean team also attaches great importance to it, and after the previous friendly match with Egypt, the Korean Football Association, the Football League and the national team have been in urgent consultation. Coach Paul Bento insisted on leading the main squad of the national team to the East Asian Cup, so the Korean Football League finally made concessions, and to this end also modified the K1 League schedule.
The difficult birth of the Chinese national selection team against the Japanese and South Korean quasi-main squad, the result does not seem to be difficult to predict.
Editor-in-Charge: Pu Yaolei