The next generation of Chinese sports idols, Chinese football can also contribute to the candidates

Written by | Horsen

Editor丨Shi Ru, Yiyi

Fans who have always loved and hated Chinese football have finally had some good mood in the past two days. After two consecutive victories 5-1 and 4-0, the Chinese Asian Games team has already secured the first place in the group in advance to ensure that it advances to the last 16 of the Asian Games.

What is even more eye-catching to fans is that China's No. 8 player Dai Weijun scored a crucial comeback goal against India and also scored against Myanmar, and is the only player in the team to score in both games.

Dai Weijun

And not only that, in an interview with the Indian media after the game, Dai Weijun's skillful switching between Chinese, Cantonese and English, as well as his humble attitude and concise expression, were enough to make fans and friends feel a huge surprise.

Dai Weijun quickly became popular out of the circle, and everyone praised him in online messages for his great demeanor and the rare intellectual beauty of Chinese players...

It was not only Dai Weijun who was fired, but also Jiang Shenglong and Zhang Wei, who were on the same team as him, and because of their excellent performance in the game and their outstanding appearance, they were warmly sought after by fans, and even Zhang Wei was pulled by female fans at the airport, asking whether he already had a girlfriend...

I have to say that such a thing happened in today's Chinese football circle, which is really unimaginable, and it is not even an exaggeration to say a shocking sentence.

Don't misunderstand, the topic we want to talk about at the moment is by no means some rational star chasing and the rice circle walking away, but the heart is full of countless emotions -

How long has Chinese football not been able to contribute high-quality youth idols to everyone?

In recent years, the speed of the fall of Chinese football is obvious to all, it can be said that year after year, year after year, year after year. Even before the start of this year's Chinese Super League, a blockbuster anti-corruption campaign involving countless high-level officials began, but even so, the referees on the Chinese Super League field contributed the worst average penalty level ever, and the obvious controversial penalty was awarded in almost every round – but this is only one part of the chaos in Chinese football.

Until last month, the women's football team broke the World Cup group stage, the leader of the Chinese Super League Shanghai Port was humiliated at home to play the AFC Champions League qualifiers, the national football team first forced a hard draw with Malaysia, and then defeated Syria, and the national Olympic team finally narrowly defeated the newly formed Indian National Olympic Games...

2023 Friendly Football Match: The Chinese men's football team lost 0-1 to Syria

So much so that in the match with Syria, because of the extreme dissatisfaction with the performance of the Chinese team, the Chengdu fans at the scene even turned against each other, giving Syria a standing ovation and cheering...

Everything seems to indicate that Chinese football has reached a dead end, and neighboring Japan has successively defeated world powers such as Germany and Turkey, which highlights the tragedy of Chinese football.

At this moment, it takes a lot of courage to admit that you are a fan of Chinese football, and it is even rarer to openly express your love for a Chinese football player in public.

Once upon a time, Chinese football also had its own highlight moments and sports idols.

In the early years of A A, the fast knife prodigal peak in Beijing, the fairy foot Peng Weiguo in Lingnan, the Shanghai model Fan Zhiyi and the Sichuan hero Wei Qun were all the number one figures in the country. Gao Gao and the queen Na Ying's love run has fed an unknown number of gossip reporters, and there is even a saying in Sichuan that "if you marry someone, you will marry Wei Daxia, and if you give birth to a child, you will give birth to Xiao Yao Xia".

Later, Ma Mingyu, Xie Hui, Sun Jihai, and Yang Chen fought in Europe, and how many Chinese people's heartstrings were involved? How many teenagers, after the European Match Day, gathered around newsstands and televisions just to get the latest news from the Legion? In particular, Yang Chen helped Eintracht Frankfurt miracle relegation in the final round of the Bundesliga, and he is still a proud talk of old fans.

Yang Chen's time in the Bundesliga

Later, Zhang Yuning, Li Jinyu, Qi Hong and Li Weifeng, these freshly dressed and angry young men, became a new generation of male gods in the minds of fans. At that time, Zhang Yuning was in the limelight for a while, and even the rising star Nicholas Tse was slightly inferior to him.

Since then, whether it is picking big beams such as Zheng Zhi, staying in the ocean such as Artemisia Junmin, or young talents such as Gao Lin and Zhang Linpeng, they have never reached the national popularity of their predecessors, and only when Wu Lei was at the peak of his career, he desperately stayed in the ocean to pursue his dreams, and then once again ignited the passion of fans across the country.

And now that Wu Lei is dying and Chinese football is in full swing, suddenly U16 Nick Japan and South Korea won the East Asian Challenge Championship, and then U23 players were recognized by fans - in the words of Stephen Chow's movie, it is simply like a firefly in the night, it is so dazzling.

Wu Lei in Spanish

A female writer once said that once intimacy is established, there will be no more love and hate, because even hate is just another side of love.

This may not be entirely true, but it is quite appropriate to describe the relationship between Chinese fans and Chinese football.

Everyone scolds Chinese football in their mouths, shouts that they will never watch Chinese football, but their bodies are more honest than anyone else, and they always pay attention to Chinese football for the first time - this is why for so many years, Chinese football has been going all the way down, but it still ranks at the top of the Chinese sports circle.

You know, Zhu Ting, the flag bearer of the women's volleyball team in 18 years, almost all team honors and individual honors - just like that, her news heat at that time was slightly inferior to Wu Lei, who competed for the main position in the Spaniards.

A few days ago, a chicken-ribbed East Asian challenge, because the U16 won Japan and South Korea, immediately grabbed the headlines of all domestic sports network media.

Chinese fans are not paying attention to Chinese football, but they are heartbroken by Chinese football, but as long as they are given a little hope, they can still return the enthusiasm.

If the results of the national football team can be better, there is no requirement to be top-notch, as long as it reaches the level of '02 - can you imagine how crazy domestic fans will be? Can you imagine how big the market space is?

The love and hate of the fans has always been pure, and no matter how out of the circle Dai Weijun is now, we still need to point out that the standard of football in India and Myanmar is really not enough, and even if they perform well in such a game, they will not provide much help to the future of the players.

And the current environment of Chinese football is such that it is not at all possible to reverse the brilliant performance of two or three players.

It's not to splash cold water or be presumptuous, but what are our Japanese players of the same age as Dai Weijun, Zhang Wei and Jiang Shenglong in the Chinese Super League and Asian Games when they are finally making a name for themselves?

The 22-year-old Yusei Sugawara has already turned Bayern's Gnabry into a fool in the game, the 22-year-old Kenei Kubo and the 26-year-old Kaoru Mikasa have become the core players of Real Sociedad in La Liga and Brighton in the Premier League, and the 24-year-old Kenyo Tomiyasu has become Arsenal's iron-blooded gate...

Friendly football match: Japan beat Germany 4-1

The road is long, the road is long.

It is no wonder that those sane fans, in the comments and messages after the Chinese Asian Games team, strongly urged Dai Weijun, Gao Tianyi and Jiang Shenglong, who performed well, to quickly try to stay in the ocean, even at all costs.

In their view, the domestic football environment is already a big dye tank, and there is almost no possibility of improvement in a short period of time - the course of the times is already like this, then the only thing left is personal struggle. I can only hope that the boys of the Asian Games can play a highlight performance and use this as a springboard to move towards a new chapter in chasing their dreams.