What has the National Olympic Games sharpened in 4 years? What is the effect of long-term intensive training? What are the criteria for selecting and employing people?
Reporter Lu Mi reports On September 12, the third round of the U23 Asian Cup qualifying group will begin, and the final round of the Chinese National Olympic Games, which scored four points in two games, will have to wait for the results of the UAE and India, and even other groups to decide their fate.
In the last game, Guoao beat India with Nabi Jiang's goal. After the game, the opposing manager said: "If we are given more training time, we can do better. This sentence seems to envy that the Chinese Olympic Games have such a long period of intensive training, but it is more like the four years of the establishment of the Chinese Olympic team, and the performance is not satisfactory, and it is surprising.
Whether or not it qualifies, the content presented by the Olympic team in the U23 Asian Cup qualifiers is unsatisfactory. There are many mistakes, difficult cooperation and insufficient offensive ability, which have exposed many problems, and the national Olympic Games are indeed quite different from the expectations of fans.
In 2020, the Chinese Football Association released the training list: in order to take a long-term view and prepare for the 2024 Paris Olympic football competition in advance, after the study of the coaching staff of the U19 men's national football team and the approval of the Chinese Football Association, the Chinese U19 national men's football team is scheduled to go to Shanghai from May 17 to June 6, 2020 to organize training. There were a total of 35 players in this training, including Nabijiang, Liang Shaowen, Liu Zhurun, Abdu Rousuli, Tao Qianglong, Zhu Yue, Chen Yuhao, Eiffelding, Ji Tao and other players, all of whom appeared in the final list of the 2024 U23 Asian Cup qualifiers.
In September 2020, the Football Association announced that the National Youth U19 began to compete in the 2020 season of the China Second League, when the 33 players called up by the National Youth League, including Duan Dezhi, Yang Zihao, Abrahan and Fernando all appeared in the National Youth U19 squad for the first time, and these players were also part of the U23 Asian Cup qualifier list.
At that time, due to the epidemic, the national youth team did not have the opportunity to go abroad to play after its establishment, so it exercised the team by participating in the Central B. In the list at that time, players who had already made a name for themselves at the club such as Tao Qianglong did not participate. Players such as Abra Khan, who had just signed up in the top league but had not yet had a chance to play, played in the Chinese Second Division with the national youth team.
The national youth team did not have a good result in the second division, and in the end, the team won 10 games, won 4 times, drew 1 and lost 5, scored 12 goals and conceded 10 goals, and ranked seventh in the group.
In 2021, the team was promoted to U20, this year's training, but also to participate in that year's China B League, the team entered the relegation group after the end of the first stage, the difference in personnel in the 4th phase is not much, only a few players adjusted. Xiao Kaitijiang trained with the team four times, but after the first training in 2022, he disappeared from the next list.
The training in 2022 and the early part of 2023 is for the U23 Asian Cup qualifiers, according to normal employment habits, the closer to the competition period, the recruited players will go in a stable direction, but some players suddenly joined during the two-year training process, such as Chengdu Rongcheng's twin stars Jutan Rip and Hu Hetao, as for Ji Tao, after missing more than a year of call-up, he will return in late 2022.
After a long period of preparation, personnel inspection and tactical running-in, the final list for the U23 Asian Cup qualifiers was released, which caused a lot of doubts. For example, Liang Weipeng, who scored in the warm-up match with Uzbekistan, and He Longhai and Kim Shunkai, who have always been important players of the team, were brushed off. And Zhao Jianbo, who has participated in more than a dozen training camps in recent years, did not enter the final 23-man list, and Zhao Jianbo returned to the club to prepare for the Chinese Super League after losing the selection without any injuries.
Wang Yu, who has not participated in any training camp for more than three years, not only entered the final list, but also started in the first game. Perhaps, league appearances are the key to letting the Olympic coaching staff decide the personnel, Zhao Jianbo has not made many appearances in the league, Wang Yu has 15 appearances. However, Wang Yu was replaced shortly after the start of the second half in the first game, who directly replaced him in the second game against India.
Before the match against the Indian team, Cheng Yaodong expressed his gratitude to Wang Yu for his temporary recruitment. But it is not difficult to see that Wang Yu's recruitment and use is a very contradictory thing. He played more in the league and performed well, but because he did not participate in the relevant training of the national Olympic team with other players around him, he was temporarily recruited in the end, lacking the most basic technical and tactical cooperation and tacit understanding, resulting in the abandonment of the second game. This problem, which should have been solved in the first half of this year or earlier, was solved in the call-up and training camp, but it appeared in the U23 Asian Cup qualifiers.
This shows that in the past four years, from the National Youth League to the National Olympic Games, personnel have been in and out, but due to the lack of determination of personnel and employment standards, and control over the actual use of personnel, there are many problems in the selection of team members.
Perhaps, this is a sign of lack of confidence. The coaching staff always felt uncomfortable with personnel, always felt that they could always find a better one, and did not determine personnel according to tactical needs, which led to constant adjustments. The lack of confidence of the team members is caused by the lack of stable and effective technical and tactical support in daily training, coupled with the unfamiliarity of the position on the field and the lack of tacit understanding between each other. After a long period of training, tacit understanding, technical tactics and familiarity with the position on the field, in fact, there should not be such a situation.
In the second half of 2022, the National Olympic Games went to Croatia for three months to practice. After the training in China this year, there was another overseas training session that lasted more than three months from March to the end of June, adding up to more than 50 warm-up matches. After returning home, the team played two warm-up games with Uzbekistan, both ended in defeat, did not fully show the results of the training, and some players returned to the club to play the league, the state declined significantly.
According to reports in front of Croatia at the time, the Olympic team repeatedly practiced the 4231 formation, as well as the tactics of high pressure, the attack was mainly proactive, and the short passes between each other were coordinated, and they did a better job in some warm-up matches. For example, in May this year, the National Olympic Games and the Croatian First Coustosga team played a confrontation match, and the two sides drew 1-1. Yu Jinyong, Hu Haotao, Bai Lamu and Mu Talipu are all in the starting lineup, and Abra Khan plays as a defensive midfielder along with Liang Weipeng. Although he also conceded the goal first, Guoao quickly equalized and attacked wave after wave. The report at the time was, "Whether it's a tackle or a transfer on the court, a pass and a routine in the attack, it's all a good game." In particular, the return of Abra Khan has improved the midfield defense of the Olympic team by more than one notch, and the success rate of close pressing and tackles is quite high. ”
However, it is strange that the performance in foreign competitions is good, but the relevant cooperation is not seen in the competition after returning to China. In the warm-up match against Uzbekistan, it was rare to see short passes from midfielders to each other. After the regrouping in August, the overall training situation changed dramatically. First of all, high-pressure plus aggressive attack is no longer the main theme, replaced by the ball at the back, the importance of the back has declined, and Abra Khan, who has performed well in the warm-up game, has been abandoned and replaced by a new combination. In the later preparations, the lack of emphasis on confrontation was also the key to the lack of confrontation ability of the Olympic team in the U23 Asian Cup qualifiers.
Let's go back at this point and look at the two matches against the UAE and India. In the face of the United Arab Emirates, which is not as strong as imagined, the national Olympic team itself has made a lot of mistakes, and there is no desire to win at the offensive level, only occupying the advantage in part of the time, but it did not continue to pressurize and lost the opportunity to win. After this game, the players were in a state of loss, but the coaching staff was quite satisfied with the result; Facing India, which is stronger than expected, while the opponent played a defensive counterattack with a low posture, Guoao gave up the midfield and chose to attack with a big foot. Fortunately, luckily, after being equalized by the opponent, Nabijiang was killed, and the national Olympic Games won 2-1. But in the course of the game, the Olympic team did not reflect the idea that it needed to win, it needed more goal difference, which puzzled the fans.
Long-term training and overseas training can provide the conditions for the growth of the national Olympic team. Ample warm-up matches also fill the gap of lack of high-level competitions and overseas training during the pandemic. Overseas training has spent so many manpower, material resources, financial resources, and even sacrificed the opportunity for many players to perform in the league, what is the price in exchange? Since returning to China from overseas training, the performance of the Olympic team has declined, what is the problem? Is long-term overseas training really necessary? This is the biggest question on people's minds.
According to media reports, in 2018, Du Zhaocai, then secretary of the Party Committee of the Chinese Football Association, led a delegation to Europe and reached cooperation agreements with Croatia and other national football associations, including coach training, player training, warm-up games and many other matters, and then due to the epidemic, many cooperation contents were not implemented in time, from August 2022 to this year's two training trips to Croatia, whether it was related to the cooperation at that time, it is temporarily uncertain.
The Olympic team is still waiting for the news of whether it will finally qualify, but according to the results of the now concluded match, if the UAE can beat the Indian team, the Chinese Olympic team is only the second in the group, and it will continue to worry about waiting for the results of other groups in the future.
And if there is no chance to advance in the end, the team is disbanded, and the coaching staff led by Cheng Yaodong may bid farewell to the national brand. No matter what the result is, what this team has experienced along the way is worth thinking deeply about by subsequent managers, and it is the responsible attitude of Chinese football not to let such things happen again and again.