The U20 national team has fewer than 500 players to choose from, and the Asian Games will depend on them in three years

In the 1/4 final of the U20 Asian Cup in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on the evening of March 12, Beijing time, the Chinese U20 men's football team fought hard with the South Korean U20 team for 120 minutes, and finally lost 1-3 after firing the last bullet, thus missing the World Youth Championship ticket. However, this football youth army still won applause and applause from Chinese fans with its tenacious style. Although they temporarily lost an opportunity to show their talents on the higher stage of international football, they won confidence with their performance in this year's U20 Asian Cup, and in fact won the opportunity to create a better future, and they can still hope for football at the Nagoya Asian Games three years later.

On January 23, 2021, 48 young players under the age of 18 gathered at the Jialize Training Base in Kunming to participate in the U18 men's national team selection camp. The Chinese Football Association explained at the time, "In order to prepare for the 2023 AFC U20 Asian Cup qualifiers in advance and fully understand the outstanding players in this age group, the Chinese Football Association organized the U18 National Men's Football Team Selection Training Camp from January 23 to February 7, 2021. ”

The opening of this camp also marks the official flagging of the 2003 Chinese National Youth Team, or the preparation of the 2003 National Youth Team for the U20 Asian Cup has entered a substantive stage from this moment. The coach of this team is Antonio Puche, the Spanish coach who is nearly half a hundred years old, and the leader is Shao Jiayi, Antonio's old partner and former international player when he was in charge of the original junior team in 2004.

As Shao Jiayi said after the team qualified for the U20 Asian Cup qualifiers in September last year, the 2003 youth team encountered the problem of too narrow talent selection from the beginning of its formation. "To be honest, at this age group of our team, there are less than 500 people in the country (to choose from), and we finally selected only 50 people, or even less than 50 people. So, you can imagine such people who have been training together for nearly 3 years, and they have not played an international competition for more than 1 and a half years. So it's really not easy to qualify this time. Shao Jiayi commented at the time.

From the perspective of the formation of the U20 national football team, Chen Zhexuan, Liu Haofan, Xiang Rongjun, Li Suda, Xu Bin, Li Hao, Bao Shengxin, Fan Chao and other main players who participated in the final stage of the U20 Asian Cup all participated in the Kunming training camp more than two years ago. The data shows that among the 23 U20 football players who signed up for this stage of the tournament, only 4 people, Gao Yunan, Mu Talifu, Peng Xiao and Yu Jinyong, did not participate in last year's qualifiers. On the one hand, this shows that the squad and formation of Antonio's team are generally stable, but from another point of view, the number of high-quality talents available for his deployment is really limited.

The U20 national football team was blocked by South Korea from the World Youth Championship, which largely reflects their inferiority. When a number of players were replaced due to physical overdraft and fell to the ground one after another, some fans couldn't help but think of Liu Guobao and He Xiaoke, the heroes of the qualifiers who were excluded by Antonio from the squad. But this is not the crux of the matter, leading a team that is widely regarded by the outside world to break through from the "group of death", Antonio naturally has something to commend in the use of troops, such as his insistence on defensive counter-attacking play. As early as the end of last year, during the inspection of the team members in the Zhangzhou U21 League in Fujian, Antonio once made this statement to the club coaches who participated in the business discussion, "Against opponents with outstanding technical advantages such as Japan and Saudi Arabia, it is unreasonable for the U20 national football team to fight for the ball at their feet, so the team should pursue the simplicity and speed of switching from defense to attack, and players should quickly launch counterattacks and push the ball forward after grabbing the ball." It's hard to imagine that such a statement came from a Spanish coach who was conscious of passing, but it turns out that he really knows himself.

In addition to personnel problems, the lack of high-quality international competition tempering is another major problem encountered by the U20 national football team in the preparation process. Due to objective factors, this team has only participated in a total of 9 international warm-up matches since the flag was raised more than two years ago until it went to Saudi Arabia for the U20 Asian Cup qualifiers in September last year, including a teaching match with the club team, in other words, the first match with Myanmar in the group stage of last year's Asian Preliminary Round was strictly the team's first official international match. In the game, the team had many twists and turns, and it was not until the last minute that the victory was sealed, and the team's serious lack of experience in the game was exposed.

Aware of the players' general lack of experience, Antonio had to look to the Chinese Super League and even the U21 League in an effort to replenish some of the available talent. Mu Talipu was able to become a contributor to qualifying for the U20 national football group of this tournament thanks to the tempering he received in Chengdu Rongcheng in the past season. Fan Chao, Hu Hetao and even Gao Yunan, who has only made one substitute appearance in this tournament, have become important players for their respective clubs in the past season, or the new force that the club focuses on, which is why they are not afraid of the U20 Asian Cup.

In Tashkent, although the U20 national football team ultimately missed the semi-finals and thus lost the qualification for the World Youth Championship, it was able to score first against favorites such as Japan and South Korea, and win the qualifiers in the same group of top teams Saudi Arabia, which is not only worthy of its mission in terms of its own strength, but even exceeds the level of performance. More importantly, under Antonio's rule, this team has become a team with a good style and strong cohesion after more than 2 years of careful building. These players will have a great chance to become the main players used by clubs and be chased by clubs, and players like goalkeeper Li Hao will even start their journey to stay in the ocean.

It should be noted that the team representing China in the men's football competition of the 2026 Nagoya Asian Games is the 2003 age group team, that is to say, although the preparation and competition tasks of this U20 national football team at this stage have come to an end, the Chinese Football Association's team formation of the men's football team for the 2026 Asian Games will begin soon. A considerable number of players in this U20 national football team will take on the important task of continuing to win glory for Chinese football. In this way, the establishment of the national youth army of this age group is likely to be retained next. As for whether Antonio will continue to lead the team, the Chinese Football Association needs in-depth communication with him and relevant parties, but at least the Chinese team at the 2026 Asian Games has basically taken shape.

Text/Beiqing Sports Xiao Zhao