Who is to blame for the zero goals in the Asian Cup of the National Football Team? Just look at the list of scorers in the Chinese Super League, it is difficult to cook without rice
With Syria's 1-0 victory over India, the national football team finally ended the painful process of "waiting for death", was officially eliminated in this cup, and can pack up and go home. Looking back on the journey of the group stage of the Asian Cup, in the three group games, one game was not won and not a goal was scored, and only two points were accumulated in the three games, setting the worst record of the national football team in the Asian Cup. So, who is to blame for such a result? Is it head coach Jankovic? Although it is difficult to escape the blame for his selection and appointment of personnel, the arrangement of troops, and the on-the-spot command, can a different head coach do a better job than him? In fact, it is almost the same who is replaced, after all, it is difficult for a good woman to cook without rice.
Looking at the results of the three games of the national football team, two 0:0 and one 0:1, from a defensive point of view, the national football team is not bad, among the 24 teams in this Asian Cup, 8 teams have played 3 games, and 16 teams have only played 2 games. So far, only Qatar and Thailand have conceded a clean sheet, and six teams including the national football team and Iran have conceded only one goal, and from this point of view, it is not an exaggeration to say that the national football team is one of the best defensive teams in the group stage of this Asian Cup.
The problem of the national football team is mainly in the attack, 3 games and 1 goal has not been scored, and the same zero goals as the national football team are India, Malaysia and Kyrgyzstan, but the latter two teams have only played two games, and the national football team has become one of the worst offensive teams in this Asian Cup. If the national football team can score one goal in the game against Tajikistan or Lebanon, it will definitely qualify from the group, and even if it can score one goal in the game against Qatar to draw the opponent, there is still hope of qualifying. It can be said that the national football team is only one goal away from qualifying from the group.
Seeing this, I believe that many fans are about to scold Jankovic again, why don't they adopt a more aggressive and aggressive style of play in the game? Why did it take so long to make substitutions when the first two games were so passive at the beginning? Why can they only replace the central defender Jiang Shenglong as a center forward when the boat is broken? Why don't you take Ackerson to the Asian Cup? More importantly, why would you rather bring four goalkeepers to the Asian Cup than recruit only three forwards, Wu Lei, Tan Long, and Zhang Yuning?
In fact, it is very simple to answer these questions, because the answers to these questions are all the same, that is, there are no good strikers for domestic players except Wu Lei, Tan Long and Zhang Yuning, although Jankovic only recruited 3 strikers to participate in the Asian Cup, but this has exhausted the excellent domestic forwards. If you don't believe me, you might as well take a look at the 2023 season Super League scorer list.
The top three scorers in the 2023 season are Leonardo of Zhejiang, Wu Lei of Shanghai Port and Mu Xiekui of Zhejiang. Looking further down, among the top 12 players on the scorer list, in addition to Wu Lei, there is only one domestic player, Tan Long, who is tied for 10th place in the scorer list with two other players with 10 goals. Looking down, among the top 21 scorers are Wang Ziming of Beijing Guoan and Aikesen of Chengdu Rongcheng, both of whom have scored eight goals.
Continuing to look down, among the top 33 players on the scorer list, domestic players are also Yu Hanchao of Shanghai Shenhua, Lu Wenjun of Shanghai Port, and Wang Qiuming of Tianjin Jinmen Tigers, all of whom scored 6 goals. Finally, among the top 46 players in the scorer list, domestic players also include Wei Shihao of Wuhan Three Towns, Lin Liangming of Dalian, Yang Liyu of Beijing Guoan, Xie Weijun of Tianjin Jinmen Tigers, Chen Pu of Shandong Taishan and Yan Xiangchuang of Dalian, all of whom scored five goals in the Chinese Super League. There are a total of 46 players who have scored five or more goals in the Chinese Super League, of which 13 are domestic players, accounting for about 28%, and most of them are in the bottom half.
Among the 13 players, Wu Lei, Tan Long, Wang Qiuming, Wei Shihao and Lin Liangming were all selected for the national team, and the remaining 8 Aikesen is 34 years old, and his state has long been much worse than before. Yan Xiangchuang is 37 years old, and the last time he was selected for the national team was in 2011. Yu Hanchao is 36 years old, and his last selection for the national team was the 2019 Asian Cup. Lu Wenjun is 34 years old, and although he has scored goals in Shanghai Port in the last three seasons, his only experience of being selected for the national team was in 2010 as an Under-23 player in the Asian Games.
Among the remaining 4 players, Wang Ziming of Beijing Guoan is 27 years old and has been selected for the national football team 5 times, including 3 national football friendly matches in 2023, 3 substitute appearances, an average of 27 minutes per game, and zero goals. Yang Liyu, also from Beijing Guoan, is 26 years old and has played in the 2020 U23 Asian Cup and the 2017 East Asian Cup, making four national team appearances and scoring zero goals.
Tianjin Jinmen Tigers' Xie Weijun is 26 years old and has only one selection for the national team, which is in a friendly match in 2023, playing only 8 minutes and scoring zero goals. Chen Pu of Shandong Taishan, 27 years old, has been selected for many appearances in the 2023 national football friendly matches, and even had the experience of being a substitute in the World Preliminaries, but he has made 7 appearances for the national team and has scored zero goals.
So, even if Jankovic brings one less goalkeeper, or even takes the risk of bringing one less player in other positions, and brings two more players, who can he bring? The last time he scored for the national football team was when the national football team defeated Guam 7-0 in the 2021 Asian Top 40 Tournament, and he can be expected to score for the national football team?
As for the forward position of the Central League, it is the world of foreign aid, and only Liu Ziming of Shenyang City, Liaoning Province scored 10 goals in the top 10 scorers, tied for 8th, and only Wang Zihao (9 goals), Ruan Jun (8 goals), and Liu Baiyang (6 goals) are only 3 domestic players in the top 19 scorers. The above 4 domestic players, not only have not been selected for the senior national team, but also have no experience in the selection of the national youth team, do you expect Jankovic to have a discerning eye and dig out a piece of jade from the Central League?
Therefore, Jankovic only brought 3 regular strikers to participate in the Asian Cup, and the national football team did not score 1 goal in the 3 group games of the Asian Cup. Even in the case of the Jinyuan football tide has passed, and the foreign aid in the domestic league has been relegated, the forward position of each team is still firmly controlled by foreign aid, after all, for most Chinese Super League and Chinese A teams, the front court relies on two or three foreign aid in the sudden, and then a bunch of domestic players defend in the backfield, which has become the fastest way to achieve results.
If we want to change the current situation of the lack of strikers in the national football team, the root lies in improving the quality of the league, but we can't turn back history and introduce a rule that prohibits the introduction of foreign strikers for Chinese Super League teams, right?
Note: The picture comes from the Internet.