On February 1, Beijing time, the Chinese Football Association issued an official announcement - the men's national team will play two warm-up matches in New Zealand and the New Zealand men's football team on March 23 and 26.
These two warm-up matches will also become the second appearance of the national football team after the round of 12 last March, and the national football team has officially entered the track of preparing for the 2023 Asian Cup and the 2026 World Cup.
It's just a little embarrassing that in the case of slow progress in the selection of coaches, it may be difficult for the new manager of the national football team to be in place before the warm-up game.
The national football team will play a friendly match with New Zealand.
Li Xiaopeng will continue to lead the team?
OFFICIALLY, THE FIRST WARM-UP MATCH BETWEEN THE TWO SIDES IS SCHEDULED FOR MT SMART STADIUM IN OAKLAND AT 2 P.M. ON MARCH 23. Three days later, the two teams will move to SKY Stadium in Wellington for another match, kick-off at 11am.
After one year, the Chinese men's football team ushered in an official international competition for the first time——
After the last match against Oman on March 30, 2022, the Chinese team was disbanded on the spot, and all aspects of construction work were at a standstill, and there was no training or competition for the next year.
For various reasons, the East Asian Cup was also played by Jankovic under the name of the national training team under the leadership of the 1999 age players plus some over-age players.
As the head coach, Li Xiaopeng led the national football team to participate in four Round of 12 matches in 2022. However, he only handed over a dismal result of 1 draw and 3 defeats, especially the loss to Vietnam on the first day of the Lunar New Year last year, which made Li Xiaopeng's business ability widely questioned.
It stands to reason that with such coaching achievements, Li Xiaopeng is no longer qualified for the job of the national football manager.
Li Xiaopeng himself also consciously faded out, he basically disappeared from the public eye after playing the World Preliminary Round, and he never appeared in the Chinese Super League to inspect players, and the only photo of Li Xiaopeng on the website was still walking his dog...
However, according to a number of media reports such as Sports Weekly and Beijing Youth Daily, Li Xiaopeng's appointment was handpicked by the sports management department before, when the relevant parties set up a national team management team - in November 2021, after the national team played six Round of 12 matches, the sports management department chose to change coaches and replace Li Tie with Li Xiaopeng.
It is basically certain that the Chinese Football Association will regain the management of the national team. For the preparation of the 2026 World Preliminary Tournament, the Chinese Football Association still decided to choose Yang Shuai as the head coach of the national team.
However, the selection of the coach did not go well, so with Li Xiaopeng still on his contract, it is no surprise that he will continue to substitute until the new foreign coach of the national team is in place.
Jankovic will not be a part-time national manager.
Jankovic's part-time model is basically bankrupt
For the foreign coach of the national team, the Chinese Football Association has previously put forward the idea of letting the 1999 age coach Jankovic be the national team manager.
In July last year, Jankovic led the national selection team to participate in the East Asian Cup, and judging from the course of the game, Jankovic's coaching ability can only be regarded as decent, lacking enough courage.
Even in the face of Hong Kong, China, in the 0-0 deadlock, it only chose to make a counterpart, sending a conservative signal that no loss is enough.
Although Tan Long scored the winning goal thanks to an error on the other side, narrowly beating Hong Kong, China 1-0, Jankovic was not the right person for the national football manager overall.
In 2023, Jankovic will also continue to lead the team to the Asian Games, so the part-time model itself has quite a hurdle.
In addition to announcing two warm-up matches between the national team and the New Zealand national team, the Chinese Football Association also announced two warm-up matches between the Asian Games team led by Jankovic and the New Zealand U23 national team.
This means that it is no longer possible for Jankovic to balance both the national team and the Asian Games team.
On January 29, the Chinese Football Association announced the 24-member training list of the Chinese men's Asian Games team, and a number of outstanding players of the appropriate age, including the main players of the national football team, Zhu Chenjie and Dai Weijun, will participate in this training.
According to the plan, the new phase of the Chinese men's Asian Games team, which consists of 24 players, will start the first training session of 2023 in Foshan City, Guangdong Province from February 4 to 14.
However, the current squad and training schedule of the national team have not yet been announced.
According to the surging news reporter, the specific training time of the national football team may begin in late February, and the Ministry of State Management will first circle a large list of 40-50 people to examine the player's state and physical condition.
On Lunar New Year's Day last year, the national football team lost to Vietnam.
The selection process must be accelerated
For the new foreign coach of the national football team, the Chinese Football Association hopes to be familiar with Chinese football and Asian football, so names including Olaroyo, Paolo Bento, Queiroz and Stojkovic are mentioned.
Objectively speaking, the above candidates are very suitable for the position of national football manager.
However, compared with the model of corporate sponsorship of the salary of the national football manager in the Jin Yuan era, the salary of the national football manager will now be completely paid by the Chinese Football Association. In recent years, the Chinese Football Association has spent a lot of money and reduced its income, and now it is somewhat cash-strapped to the table.
According to the surging news reporter, for the annual salary budget of the national football manager, the Chinese Football Association psychological expectation is at most 2 million US dollars after tax.
Therefore, foreign managers such as Olaroyo, Paolo Bento and Stojkovic who do not lack job opportunities themselves and have relatively high incomes find it difficult to consider the position of national football manager.
They have experienced the high income of Chinese football in the Jin Yuan era, and now the income of the national football manager has plummeted, the probability of achievement is still low, and the attractiveness is really limited.
But that shouldn't be a reason why the selection of a manager has been so slow – managers with an annual salary of $3.5 million after taxes in the second tier of Europe abound, and for candidates like Ivan Lecco and Vitor Pereira, the position is still a good job.
In fact, after Camacho left class, the Chinese Football Association's experience of choosing Perrin can be used as a reference. At that time, Perrin had a certain reputation in Europe, and the salary requirement was about one million dollars, which should be the object that the current national football manager can consider.
Even within the scope of the Chinese Super League, Zhejiang coach Jodi and Chengdu Rongcheng coach Xu Zhengyuan have shown quite good leadership ability in the past season, and the Chinese Football Association can also consider these cost-effective managers.
The time is tight, the task is heavy, and the selection progress can no longer be delayed.