Considerate talk丨There is no lower limit for the national football and national Olympic Games, but it is really not Chinese not suitable for playing football

Shortly after the U15 East Asian Football Championship, the Chinese team won the championship amazingly, but in the higher-level national competition, the Chinese team once again performed unsatisfactory: the national football warm-up match forced a difficult draw with Malaysia, and the national Olympic team narrowly defeated India after a hard battle in the U23 Asian Cup qualifiers. Is it that "when it's small, it's not necessarily good" is destined to be the lingering label of Chinese football? This is not the case.

Written by 丨 Horsen

Editor丨 Feng Xiao

In the eyes of the vast majority of fans, this "no" does not refer to a physical or technical aspect of the failure, but from personnel to the system, from league to national team, from youth training to ecological environment, etc., all aspects, all-round backwardness.

Sound too pessimistic?

But in this year, the darkness and chaos in the Chinese football circle has exceeded the fans' ability to bear, not to mention that the leader of the Chinese Super League SIPG was eliminated from the AFC Champions League qualification tournament by Pathum United, which ranked ninth in the Thai league, at its home stadium in Shanghai, not to mention that the highly anticipated U17 national football team finished bottom of the group in the Youth Asian Cup, and even the Chinese women's football team, which has always been regarded as national pride, has shown a trend of falling towards the abyss...

As General Fan's classic quotes of the past ten years are gradually becoming a reality, many fans have even come to a desperate point of view, that is, maybe ... Chinese, is it really not suitable for football? Otherwise, how could there be even 11 out of a billion people who can play football?

At this time, the young men of U15 came with good news.

The East Asian Football Federation U15 Championship, the Chinese team won the championship.

They not only overtook Japan and South Korea to win the U15 East Asian Football Championship, but also scored a total of 48 goals in 6 games, conceded only 1 goal, and ranked first among the 9 teams participating in both offensive and defensive statistics.

While a U15 East Asian Championship winner doesn't say much, and the boys failed to beat Japan and South Korea in 90 minutes — a champion is a champion, and for Chinese football, which is now in turmoil, even a straw is enough to be seen as a lifesaver.

What's more, the U15 lads showed the content of the game: concise, fast, and agile – God knows how long it has been since any Chinese football team has been used.

Some senior fans even said with tears in their eyes that the final of the U15 East Asian Championship was the smallest difference between the national echelons of China and Japan in more than a decade.

It turns out that we can play well.

Unfortunately, this long-lost emotion and joy was less than half a day, and two basins of cold water were poured down: the warm-up match of the national football team forced a hard draw with Malaysia, and the national Olympic side narrowly defeated India after a hard battle in the U23 Asian Cup qualifiers.

National football warm-up match 1-1 Malaysia.

In these two games, the scene is basically five or five, and the opponent's attack is even more similar than the national football team and the national Olympic team, but when you study it carefully, there is a difference.

In any case, the Chinese men's football team has always had a tradition of being weak and not strong, and although Malaysia has been an Asian fish belly in the past, there are 7 naturalized players in the starting lineup for this match, and the strength is not bad.

Considering that they have not only been indistinguishable from Vietnam, which has improved rapidly in recent years, but also forced the national football team's new bitter club Syria to achieve a draw with the national football team after falling 2-0 down in a recent friendly match, it does not seem particularly difficult for the national football team to achieve a draw - although Chinese fans who are gasped in the stands are not necessarily so "reasonable".

2023 U23 Asian Cup Qualifying Group G Round 2, China 2-1 India.

There is no way to explain it at all.

Indian football is not high-level, the most outrageous thing is that the coach of this Indian Olympic team, Miranda, has just taken office a few years ago, and the selection personnel are all run-in, but only three weeks...

But in the face of such a team, the Olympic team that we have been training for a long time actually has no technical and tactical advantages at all, needless to say, the dribbling is rough, the pass is only two feet to open the big foot, striker Tao Qianglong has contributed a strong shooting error comparable to Arsenal's leader Havertz...

Perhaps, this is what Chinese football "should be".

In addition to "weak but not strong", "when the hour is over, the big may not be good" seems to be one of the labels of Chinese football.

The two Kodak Cups (World Junior Championships) in '85 and '89 China U16 achieved good results, and the outstanding performers such as Sun Bowei, Xie Yuxin, Cao Zhidong, as well as Wei Qun, Gao Gao, and Su Maozhen can be described as infinitely beautiful. It is a pity that fifteen years later, the Football Association implicitly admitted that almost all the ages of the employees were falsified, which was one of the old traditions.

Next is the "golden generation of Jianlibao" studying in Brazil, Li Jinyu, Li Tie, Sui Dongliang, Zhang Xiaorui, Li Weifeng, all of them are compelling, full of talent, but unfortunately a little older, not only failed to impact the Sydney Olympic Games, but also most of them were unknown after entering A A.

Then there is the "platinum generation" under Shen Xiangfu, Dewey, Xu Liang, Yan Song, An Qi, Qu Bo, Sun Xiang, the Toulon Cup was stunning for a while, but unfortunately not long after, the Asian Games eight finals broke the halberd, the Athens Olympics was eliminated by the South Korean National Olympic Double Kill, and quickly fell.

There was also Clauchen's "super platinum generation" later, Dong Fangzhuo, Artemisia Junmin, Feng Xiaoting, Gao Lin, Zhao Xuri, Chen Tao, which was not a good boy when he first debuted, but when he grew up, he lived as a talk show joke - the kind that he had to tell with his own hippie smile.

Generation after generation, repeating the same story.

It's not that no one has summed up the reasons for the failure - Shen Xiangfu had players questioned at that time, the team was established for four years, the total training time exceeded 720 days, in addition to training or training, the final ability did not improve, and the psychological quality was visible to the naked eye fell a lot.

Shen Xiangfu coaches the National Olympic Team.

Even Clauchen himself did not understand the significance of this kind of long-term training, but shortly after questioning the training methods and personnel, he was suddenly mysteriously dismissed by the Football Association on the grounds that he was "too old to be suitable for intense sports", and the famous coach Dui who replaced him was also quite unbearable.

In sharp contrast, this year's U15 East Asian Championship, I don't know if the game is not much attention or not expected relationship, the Football Association did not intervene much, temporarily formed a team, insiders looked for coaches, after normal training run-in, actually won the championship.

After the exclusion variable method, what is the problem?

What's even more interesting is that the national football team fought hard against Malaysia and kept falling at the back, looking unenterprising, so that the fans booed, but coach Jankovic said after the game: "This time I will bear the boos of all the fans, we attack a little slower because I asked the players to do this." Because I asked to push first after the defensive end was solid, which was my first request, not to play too openly, because the opponent is characterized by counter-attack. ”

However, when preparing for the U15 matches against South Korea and Japan, coach Masaaki Nakamura reminded the players: "You must improve the pace in the game and speed up the offensive and defensive conversion. ”

Masaaki Nakamura.

Captain Jang Hongfu also said in an interview: "We didn't feel comfortable at the beginning of the match against South Korea. Domestic competitions do not have such rhythm and intensity. They are fast-paced, fierce and we need to handle the ball more decisively and faster than the opponent. ”

Compared with the slow inverted feet of the national football team and the national Olympic team, the speed and simplicity of the U15 is closer to the trend of technical and tactical development in international football today - this is what makes fans feel more happy than the championship.

Why is there such a big difference?

Nakamura explained that the fact that Japanese players can participate in many high-quality matches from an early age is the most important reason for the success of Japanese football. "Japanese teenagers participate in high-quality soccer matches every week, and they can continue to gain experience, make higher demands on themselves and set higher goals," he said. Therefore, they are constantly improving. ”

A Chinese coach in the U15 team also said that Chinese children proved that they were not inferior in the competition, but compared with Japan and South Korea, there is a serious lack of high-quality matches in the field of youth football in China, and the current situation is worrying. The priority is to ensure that they can continue to improve steadily so that they can compete with Japanese and Korean players when they become adults.

In a word, play more high-quality games and less meaningless training.

This is only specific to the training of the national team, in addition, there is also the big environmental problem, there are not many people in this system who understand, and they all know what the problem is, but for decades, the problem has been there, so, whose problem?

Japan, a neighbor, started professionalization reform even later than China, but with its solid style, serious attitude and perseverance, it has become the light of Asia today.

Just last night, when Chinese fans were celebrating the U15 victory with mixed feelings, the Japanese national team once again beat the world's giants Germany 4-1, and the young generation of European players such as Mikasa, Tomiyasu Kenyang and Sugawara Yusei who performed well in the Premier League have already provoked the beam, while our Wei Shihao, Zhang Yuning and Lin Liangming can only sink deeper and deeper into the mud of the Chinese Super League.

Whether from history or the current situation, we have never lacked good football seedlings, in this U15 competition, just the youth training achievements of Evergrande and Luneng football schools, smashed a championship - the golden yuan football of Evergrande has now disappeared, but the youth training flower planted casually is growing silently, giving all fans a surprise.

This is more likely to show that continuous investment, scientific and reasonable training, and less resistance from the administrative direction, and perseverance, China can also cultivate young people who can play football.

Whether it is the national football team or the national Olympic Games, there are probably not many fans who really hope for it, but for this U15 that makes everyone's eyes shine, expectations and worries may be both, after all, so much gold, platinum, super platinum, and finally not perfectly integrated into the environment of Chinese football?

However, this bright champion is a good way to tell everyone a truth - "doing the right thing" is never extremely difficult, and what is more difficult than this is "insisting on doing the right thing".

We would like to encourage Chinese football.