After departing from Zagreb, Croatia, on August 24 for Bahrain, the Chinese 2003 U19 national youth team has been preparing for a week in Bahrain. Although after coming to Bahrain, the team no longer carried out "three training a day" like in Croatia, but the intensity of training is not small. In 10 days, the team will face Myanmar and open the curtain on the ticket to the final stage of the U20 Asian Cup.
1. Multi-party trade-offs Move to Bahrain
The national youth team's move to Bahrain is a temporary adjustment of the preparation plan, because according to the original plan, the team only trained in Serbia and Croatia, and then went directly from Europe to Saudi Arabia. However, because the head coach Antonio had been coaching in Kuwait for two years and was familiar with the weather conditions in West Asia in September, and the team's Spanish physical coach Rafael has been preparing for the high temperature and high humidity weather conditions, consulting various materials and looking for the most scientific arguments, so as to help the team better prepare, and finally developed a more reasonable and scientific way during the Croatia period, thinking that it is still necessary to rush to a place more similar to Saudi Arabia for adaptive training in advance, the time is about 10 days to two weeks. In this case, the team finally decided to end the training preparation in Croatia early and instead went to Bahrain to continue the preparation.
In fact, it is precisely because the U19 national youth decided to leave Croatia early for Bahrain, which made the Bosnian U19 national youth team rush to Zagreb on August 29 to play with the national youth team from the U19 national youth team to the U21 national youth team. At the same time, due to the temporary decision to go to Bahrain, the national youth team also sent an advance team to Bahrain in advance to implement the training venue and accommodation place in advance. The choice of Bahrain is also very important because Bahrain and the national youth team will play in the U20 Asian Cup in the future - Saudi Daman is relatively close, from Bahrain to take a bus, across the Sabah Bridge can be directly located in Dammam, the bus ride is also about an hour. Although the conditions in the UAE, Qatar and other places are better than in Bahrain, it is necessary to take a flight from the UAE and Qatar to Dammam, and it is still more time-consuming and energy-consuming to check in luggage. It is obviously more convenient to take the bus, and the luggage can be directly pulled to the door of the Hotel where Daman is staying with only one porter. So, the team ultimately chose to prepare for the game in Bahrain.
It should be said that the Bahrain Football Association is still more cooperative, helping the Chinese national youth to choose a good training venue, and can go to normal training every day, and the warm-up venue also chose a special football field under the Bahrain Youth and Sports Affairs Department. In addition, the hotel selected by the national youth team is also a new hotel in the local area that has only been open for more than a month to ensure that the players can get a good rest. Therefore, in the past week, the team has been relatively satisfied with the preparations.
2, one practice a day to adapt to high temperatures
Previously, during the period in Croatia, the team almost always practiced three times a day, but after coming to Bahrain, the team gradually began to reduce the amount, and now it maintains the rhythm of one practice a day. For example, after arranging a warm-up match with the Bahrain National Youth Team on August 29, on the morning of the 30th, all the team members stayed directly in the hotel for restorative training, and in the afternoon, the whole team was arranged to rest in place.
Frankly speaking, after arriving in Bahrain, it is almost impossible for the team to train normally during the day, because although the maximum temperature during the day is 41 ° C, if you walk out of the door of the hotel, the actual surface temperature may be as high as 50 ° C. At night, although the temperature drops to 35 °C, it is the lowest temperature of the day. According to the match time confirmed by the AFC, the two matches of the Chinese team began at 19:00 local time in Saudi Arabia, and the outdoor temperature at this point in time was still 38 °C. In such a temperature, how to further maintain good physical fitness? This is obviously very elaborate.
The author stands on the sidelines, basically not moving will involuntarily sweat outside, and there will be a slimy feeling on the body, always feel uncomfortable. So, playing in such weather, you can imagine the dedication of the players. Moreover, a situation that has to be mentioned is that historically, the Chinese Super League clubs played in the AFC Champions League, and suffered big score losses when they went to West Asia in September, such as Shandong Luneng's 2-7 defeat at Etihad in September 2005, and Shenzhen Jianlibao's 0-6 defeat in September 2005 away to Ain, strength is certainly one aspect, but more importantly, Chinese players do not adapt to the high temperature and humidity weather in West Asia, and the players' physical strength is quickly exhausted in the game, which eventually leads to a big score fiasco.
This can also be seen from one side of the reality that the future national youth team needs to face when going to Saudi Arabia, that is, how to play their own level normally in the case of high temperature and high humidity, and also strive to win and achieve as many goals as possible.
3. Familiar with the style of play Three battles against the opponent
In fact, the reason why the team considers moving from Croatia to Bahrain is another layer of consideration, that is, to let the players experience and adapt to the environment of West Asia in advance. For example, during the national youth team in Croatia or Serbia, although the training is normal and warm-up matches are also played, the fans in Europe are still relatively civilized, and because it is only a warm-up game, it is difficult for players to really understand what "away team" really means.
However, during their stay in Bahrain, when the Chinese team arranged a warm-up match, local Bahraini fans would bring horns, gongs and drums, tape recorders and amplifiers to create all kinds of noise in the stands. In particular, when the game began, the loudspeaker never stopped, emitting a harsh chanting sound, which could easily distract the players on the field and even get upset. Just like the previous Chinese national team or U23 team in West Asia, as long as there are fans entering, it will create a "chanting sound". The young players of the U19 national youth team have rarely had the opportunity to participate in international competitions in the past few years due to the epidemic, let alone rush to West Asia to participate in warm-up matches, so there is no concept of what kind of atmosphere and environment West Asia is.
This time through the warm-up with the Bahrain youth team, the young players of the national youth team can feel it very well, because if the team goes to Saudi Arabia to compete, the number of fans in the same group of other opponents such as Myanmar, Uzbekistan, Maldives and other countries will not be very large, and when the last battle against the Saudi team, the local fans in Saudi Arabia may not miss the rare opportunity, and will definitely create a bahraini local fan to cheer and cheer for the Bahrain team, so it is obviously more beneficial for the team to experience it for the first time during the Bahrain period. At the same time, due to the similarity of bahrain's technical and tactical style with saudi arabia, the U19 national youth players can also experience the difference between The West Asian Club and the European Club, and feel the difference between Asian football and European football. It is also conducive to the team's better preparation for the U20 Asian Cup qualifiers.
According to the arrangement, the team will play another warm-up match with Bahrain on September 1.