The U15 national football team beat Japan to win the championship is exciting, what can Chinese football gain

On the evening of the 8th, the East Asian Football Federation U15 Championship, the U15 national football team and the U15 Japanese team drew 0-0 in regular time, and then defeated Japan 4-2 after a penalty shootout.

Strictly speaking, this is not a particularly formal event, and there is not much attention to the game – but for Chinese football, which has been at a low point for a long time, any championship can play an exciting role.

After the game, the boys proudly held the trophy and shouted "Chinese team champion!" slogan. And in addition to the excitement, we also have to think about how to make such victories happen often.

The lads celebrated in the dressing room. (00:30)

Developing stars is even more critical

The U15 national team was strong before reaching the final.

They are in Group A with South Korea, Macau, Mongolia and the Northern Mariana Islands. In the group stage, the scores of the four matches of the Chinese team are: 13-0 Macau, 6-0 Mongolia, 23-0 Northern Mariana Islands, and 1-1 South Korea.

In the end, the team beat South Korea to top the group by goal difference, and defeated Chinese Taipei 5-0 in the semifinals to advance to the final.

That is, they have won 4 and drawn 1 in 5 games before the final, scoring 48 goals and achieving a goal difference of 47.

Of course, the final can finally exchange white rolls with Japan and win through penalty shootouts, goalkeeper Zhang Junxi made many successful saves as the first credit, and he saved two penalties from Japan in the penalty shootout, which can be called the MVP of this final.

Another person who has attracted the attention of fans is mixed central defender Zhang Hongfu. He is a mixed race between China and Africa, born on August 22, 2008, from the 08 echelon of Evergrande Football School, a professional central defender on the field, and his height is close to 1.9 meters.

Zhang Hongfu's father is from Tanzania.

In the 2022-2023 season, he registered for the Moradhara Sports School U16B and played with the team in the U16 Autonomous League of Madrid, Spain, finishing in the squad for 10 games, starting 6 games and scoring 1 goal.

In addition, Zhang Hongfu also played 3 games and started 2 games in the U16 Honor League in Madrid, Spain with Morada Sports School U16A. Netizens jokingly called him the Van Dijk of the Chinese team.

At present, there are indeed some hopeful stars in the junior national team, such as Li Hao, the goalkeeper of the 2003 age group led by Antonio, who has a very stable performance in the Asian Youth Championship.

In the 2005 age team led by Yang Chen, Wang Yudong, a striker from Zhejiang, also showed considerable talent.

In the process of growing up in a team at a younger age, results are important, but the development of individual stars is actually more critical.

Masaaki Nakamura (middle).

The advantages of foreign teachers leading the team are obvious

This team was able to win the championship in the end, and the coaching ability of head coach Masaaki Nakamura was fully displayed.

In this competition, this team played a lot of wonderful cooperation, which was eye-catching, and the ability of the Japanese youth coach was also praised by fans and media.

However, it is somewhat embarrassing that Masaaki Nakamura is not a coach selected by the Chinese Football Association, nor has he signed a formal work agreement with the Chinese Football Association...

In June this year, the Chinese Football Association issued an announcement to open the competition for the 2008 national junior team manager. According to the competition notice issued by the Chinese Football Association, the head coach is required to hold the AFC professional coach qualification certificate or other equivalent certificates issued by the Intercontinental Football Federation, but now Nakamura Masaaki only has the A-level coach certificate issued by the Japan Football Association.

Therefore, Nakamura Masaaki simply did not have the minimum qualifications to serve as the head coach of the Chinese national team.

However, in the absence of results in the competition, Masaaki Nakamura temporarily led the team to achieve good results, which proved his ability to some extent, and once again showed that whether in the senior team or youth training, the overall level of foreign coaches is still far ahead of local coaches.

Earlier this year, Antonio's 2003 youth team defeated Saudi Arabia to advance to the quarterfinals when the group qualification was not favorable, and in a direct clash with South Korea for a ticket to the World Youth Championship, China also took the lead, but unfortunately because of the controversial penalty kick was eventually equalized by South Korea, losing overtime and missing the World Youth Championship qualification.

The advantages of foreign teachers in many aspects have to be acknowledged.

The players lifted the trophy.

Is it better to form a temporary team than a long-term training camp?

From the squad, it can be found that the U15 national football team has players from Guangdong Evergrande Football School as the team, and a total of 11 people have been selected. Head coach Masaki Nakamura and his coaching team are also from Evergrande Football School, so some insiders believe that this team cannot be called a "national junior team" in the true sense, but more like a temporary "selection team".

It is understood that because the elite player training camp of this age group was held in Tangshan, Hebei Province, after the original 10-day training camp, 20 players were directly selected to compete in Qingdao.

Moreover, because it is only a training camp, many good players at the age of 08 have been upgraded to the team of the age group of 07 and did not appear in the training camp. Therefore, the team that participated in Qingdao this time did not gather all the best players in this age group in China.

Among them, in Chinese football, it is well known that many times the way for youth teams to prepare for Asian competitions is long-term training, such as the national Olympic team that is participating in the Paris Olympic qualifiers in Dalian, which has formed teams in Croatia, Belgium and other European countries for training for more than a year, but in the end, many players who participated in the training did not enter the official competition list.

Coupled with the fact that the process of the first match against the United Arab Emirates can only be regarded as unsatisfactory, this also exacerbates the different views of the outside world on the long-term training.

At this time, the victory of this national junior team in this cup actually provides another way of thinking - as long as the training is proper and the manager has enough ability, even if the effect of temporary team formation will not be bad?