Ten days before the start of the U23 Asian Cup, the national Olympic team announced the final 23-man roster. In addition to the injured Jian Tao, and the West Coast goalkeeper Ji Jiabao, who suddenly came out of nowhere in the Chinese Super League this season (he was not included in the previous 50-man list and could not be re-reported), this time Cheng Yaodong basically called up the best batch of players of the right age.
But in this list, it is not difficult for everyone to find that only the midfielder Xu Bin was selected for the youth players produced by Evergrande Football School, who spent a lot of money in the past and attracted countless attention, and many players who were highly praised by the brand department in the past were not selected for this list.
As the best player in the Evergrande 01 age group, Permanjiang also handed over 5 goals and 7 assists in the Chinese League last year. But returning to Xinjiang at the end of last season and playing an inconsequential invitational tournament directly fractured the bone, and he will not return to the stage of the professional league for the whole of 2024. Even if Cheng Yaodong wants to investigate, he doesn't have this opportunity!
And Tan Kaiyuan has been famous in recent years, but from 2022 onwards, there will not be many games, and in the limited playing time, there is also a lack of dazzling performances, and there are only some players who are at least familiar in the professional league in the national brand competition, what is so strange?
And Wang Shilong is most accustomed to playing as a central defender, but he does not have the height of a central defender. You put him at full-back, and he's not very good at getting back and forth, his pace, his assists. If he is placed on a higher level of stage competition, the positioning will be more awkward.
The same National Olympic age player from Evergrande Football School, who was originally pinned on high hopes, moved to Nanjing City this season, but in recent years, he has been somewhat obsessed. In the past two years, when the Guangzhou team has been given sufficient playing time, as a striker, he has played more than 50 occasions in two seasons and contributed 4 goals and 3 assists. After switching to Nanjing City this season, the picture that can be compiled into the highlights is still playing Yukun away and being punished.
And Hou Yu has actually made rapid progress in the past two years, and in terms of performance in the league alone, he is at least no worse than Duan Dezhi who Cheng Yaodong used in the qualifiers. It can be said that Hou Yu is the only pearl among the players who were not selected for the National Olympic list.
And the players of Evergrande Academy, not only the Olympic age group, the development of this group is not as expected. The first batch of players in the 99/00 age group recruited by Evergrande Football School has also not been doing well recently. Bugrahan returned to Guangzhou last year and handed over five goals and five assists, but has yet to play in Chengdu this season.
Chen Guokang, who has had a good performance in Meizhou Hakka in 22 years, has now gone to play in the second division. Like Zheng Shengxiong, Fan Hengbo, and Huang Guangliang, they also do not have the ability to play in the middle league. And Evergrande's 99/00 age group youth players, the best Dili Yimiti, is really good, but as a midfielder, he doesn't dare to compliment at his feet. As for Wen Xiaojun, who was poached from Dalian by Evergrande at a high price, when he was still a U23 player, he seemed to be heavier than the U35 player on the field. In the past two years in Shenhua, there has been no chance at all. As for Zhang Aokai, who was pushed by Evergrande to become the youngest captain in the history of the Chinese Super League, how many people have seen him play?
In addition, when Yang Chen coached the 06 National Youth Championship, he did not bring players from Evergrande Football School. Djurdjevic took office to form the first phase of the 05 national youth training camp, and also did not recruit a player from the Evergrande youth training. Only when Antonio coached the 03 National Youth Asian Youth Championship, he recruited Xu Bin and Huo Chengping, two Evergrande youth players (Eiffelding is a youth training in the old city and only went to Evergrande in 20 years).
If a coach with a national brand is unwilling to use players from Evergrande Football School, it may be a problem with the coach; if a group of players are not recruited by the national brand for a long time, it may just be that the quality of that group is not good. But many age groups of national brands do not recruit Evergrande youth players, when a number of Evergrande youth players who were originally pinned on high hopes, many of them are now playing in a Chinese League and B are hard, it is difficult for someone to gain a foothold in the Chinese Super League, behind a group of youth players reduced to "waste wood", Evergrande has invested a lot in youth training in the early stage.
Of course, we can also see that in the 08 national youth team that has just been formed, there are many players from Evergrande youth training who have been examined. In particular, mixed-race central defender Zhang Hongfu has become a superstar expected by the outside world. I'm afraid that Evergrande Youth Training will come up with at least a star who belongs to Chinese football, and if the Guangzhou team wants to rely on the team built with football school players as the core team, it can only hope for this group of post-08 players.