In the near future, the 08-year-old national junior team will assemble in Suzhou to prepare for the 2024 Asian Junior Championship Qualifiers. In this training camp, 22 players will be selected for the final national junior team squad, and under the leadership of the coaching staff, they will go to Romania to participate in a number of friendly matches.
Although the attention of the national youth team is far less than that of the national team, the defeat of a player still surprises many fans, he is the son of Zheng Zhi, a famous national football player-Zheng Ziyi. Judging from the current situation, Zheng Ziyi is likely to miss the overseas training of the national junior team.
The 16-year-old Zheng Ziyi was born in the United Kingdom, when the 28-year-old Zheng Zhi was studying in the United Kingdom, playing for Charlton Athletic in the Championship, is the absolute main force in the team, playing for Charlton for a season, Zheng Zhi played for the team in 42 league games, scored 7 goals and 6 assists, breaking the previous record set by South Korean player Xue Qixuan for Asian players in the Championship.
After returning from abroad, Zheng Zhi joined Guangzhou Evergrande, which was in the Chinese Super League at that time, and played for the team for 10 seasons, leading the team to win 8 league championships, 2 AFC Champions League championships, 1 FA Cup championship and 2 Super Cup championships, becoming the first core player in the team.
And Zheng Ziyi, who lived in Guangzhou with his father, also entered Evergrande Football School without any suspense and began professional football training. Zheng Ziyi, who inherited his father's excellent genes, can be said to have become famous at a young age, and at the age of 9, he had already won the championship of the Guangzhou Youth Football League on behalf of the Evergrande U9 echelon. Coupled with the fact that his father has been the number one star of the national football team for many years, Zheng Ziyi has also received special attention from fans.
In 2021, the 13-year-old Zheng Ziyi was selected for the Football Association's Under-14 elite youth player training camp and was selected for the national junior team for the first time last year. However, in the past two years, the results of the national junior team in the Asian arena have been very dismal, and Zheng Ziyi's performance has also been questioned by many fans, many people believe that Zheng Ziyi's talent and ability are far from reaching the height of Zheng Zhi back then. Therefore, Zheng Ziyi's failure to be selected for the national junior team this year did not make people feel too surprised.
At present, Zheng Zhi is one of the members of the Chinese men's football team's coaching staff, and his prestige in the team is quite high. However, his son was not selected for the latest edition of the national youth team squad, which shows that the leadership of the Football Association in charge of youth training did not save face for Zheng Zhi because of his special status.
This year, the new leadership team of the Football Association has changed many of the previous bad styles, including the selection of players for national teams at all levels. Now the Football Association's criteria for selecting international players is that no matter who you are and what you have to do with the national team, as long as your ability does not meet the standards, you will definitely not be recruited into the national team.
In this regard, Zheng Zhi also accepted it calmly. Because, even if it is his own son, it is very natural that he cannot meet the requirements of the national team, and there is no need to pull out the seedlings to help him. If Zheng Ziyi really can't eat football, he can also arrange other development paths for his son, study hard like ordinary people, and be admitted to a prestigious university when he grows up, and he can also succeed in the future, right?