As the only local head coach of the Chinese Football Association's national team, Cheng Yaodong officially terminated his cooperation with the Chinese Football Association after leading the 2001 Chinese Olympic men's football team to the Paris match. Prior to this, as the "reserve" of the Chinese men's football team at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games, the 2005 Chinese U19 men's football team has officially formed a team and organized several training camps. The Chinese Football Association also transferred the Serbian coach of the 1999 Chinese men's football Asian Games team Djurdjevic to the coach of the team. It is understood that the new Chinese women's football team, which will restart in May, is likely to be coached by a foreign coach. This means that in the coming period, national teams at all levels, including the women's football team, will choose foreign coaches as a whole. Due to the previous Chinese Football Association's attitude on the issue of selecting local and foreign coaches, the idea of selecting foreign coaches in the new cycle is still to be answered in practice.
On the afternoon of the 23rd, Beijing time, a flight carrying the 2001 Chinese men's national football team arrived in Beijing from Doha, Qatar, and then the team was disbanded on the spot. The players returned to their respective clubs to prepare for the professional league, while head coach Cheng Yaodong immediately returned to his hometown of Shanghai. At this point, the mission of this year's National Olympic team has officially ended. Cheng Yaodong himself also confirmed that his contract with the Chinese Football Association officially ended with the team's unsuccessful impact on the Paris Olympics.
In early March this year, as the Chinese U20 women's football team lost the U20 Women's Asian Cup and missed the U20 Women's World Cup, the cooperation between Wang Jun, the local coach of the Chinese U20 women's football team at the time, and the Chinese Football Association officially came to an end. As a result, among the men's and women's teams at all levels of the Chinese Football Association, the 2001 Chinese men's national Olympic team became the only team coached by local coaches. And with the end of this team's historical mission, Cheng Yaodong's cooperation with the Chinese Football Association has also ended.
It is understood that before the 2001 Chinese men's national Olympic team went west to participate in the final stage of the Olympic preliminaries, the Chinese Football Association took precautions and launched the team formation of the men's Olympic team (reserve) of the two Olympic Games in 2028 and 2032. As a team of appropriate age for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games, the 2005 Chinese U19 men's football team completed its first team formation as early as last summer with the Chinese U18 men's football selection team, and then went to Japan in August last year to participate in an international exchange tournament with the participation of teams of the same age from China, Japan and South Korea. Due to the haste in the formation of the team, the Chinese Football Association temporarily arranged Shao Jiayi, the current assistant coach of the national football team, as the head of the coaching team, and joined hands with some members of the original U17 national football coaching staff to complete the work of leading the team at that time. However, considering that this team will have a major task in the future to impact next year's U20 Asian Cup and the Los Angeles Olympics, the Chinese Football Association, after comprehensive consideration, finally hired the Serbian coach Djurdjevic, who led the men's football team in the 1999 age group to the top 8 men's football in the Hangzhou Asian Games, as the head coach of this Olympic hope team.
In fact, before the confirmation of the transfer to Djurdjevic, the Chinese Football Association has consciously tilted in the direction of foreign coaches on the issue of selecting coaches for national teams at all levels. After Serbian coach Jankovic left the national football coach in February this year, the Chinese Football Association has made it clear that it will choose excellent foreign coaches to replace him. Further back, after the Chinese women's football team broke off the Paris Olympics in early November last year, the "resignation" of then coach Shui Qingxia was irreversible. Although the team has no major tournament to play in the next two years, combined with the ups and downs of the team in the international competition in recent years, as well as the rapid development of international women's football, the Chinese Football Association still decided to complete the change of coach as soon as possible, so as to help the Chinese women's football team enter the new cycle of Asian Cup, Olympic Games, Asian Games and World Cup preparations in advance.
On March 19 this year, the Chinese Football Association publicly released the new Chinese women's football team through official channels The new coach selection notice. Although the notice clearly pointed out that the goal of the coach selection is not limited to "Chinese and foreign" coaches, it is understood that after the recent substantive operation of the coach selection, almost all the final candidates selected by the Chinese Football Association are foreign coaches, which means that the Chinese women's football team, which will be reorganized in May this year, will most likely be led by a foreign coach. And such a result is actually in line with the expectations of the Chinese Football Association.
In addition to the Chinese men's national football team, the new Chinese U19 men's football team in 2005 (the men's football age team for the next Olympic Games) and the national women's football team, other national teams in the Chinese Football Association are also coached by foreign coaches. For example, the 2008 Chinese U16 men's football team, which is about to participate in the new U17 Asian Cup qualifiers this year, has been confirmed to be led by Japanese coach and former Japanese international Kenichi Uemura. In addition, as the reserve team of the Chinese men's football team for the 2032 Olympic Games, the 2009 Chinese U15 men's football team is also determined to be commanded by the coaching staff led by Japanese coach Toshi Ukishima. At present, these two teams have organized no less than 2 training camps, and under the arrangement of the Chinese Football Association, they have recently gone to Japan and Romania for training and warm-up.
It is worth noting that the Chinese Football Association is eclectic when it comes to the selection of foreign coaches for national teams. For example, the national football team and the 2005 U19 national football team are coached by two coaches from the former Yugoslav countries, while the two men's national teams are led by Japanese coaches. It should be said that the Chinese Football Association is also targeted in the selection of foreign teachers. For example, the 56-year-old Toshitoshi Ukishima has a very rich coaching resume. As the mentor of current Japanese international Endo Hang, he started his coaching career at Yokohama FC after hanging up his boots, and then moved to Shonan Marine in 2011 as an assistant coach for the club's first team and then as coach of the U18 team. In October 2019, Ukishima became the head coach of Shonan Marine and led the team to 81 games.
According to some news, when the Chinese U15 men's football team went to Japan to play last year, members of the Chinese Football Association's coach selection team had face-to-face communication with Ukishima. The Chinese Football Association believes that as a registered professional coach and lecturer of the Japanese Football Association, Ukishima has a unique vision in discovering and cultivating young players. The selection of him complements the current thinking of the Chinese Football Association in focusing on football youth training.
In fact, after the 2001 national Olympic team lost the Paris Olympic preliminaries, a member of the coaching team once confessed, "Compared with the practice of pursuing rapid improvement of the team's competitiveness through training and warm-up, our national team should pay more attention to the enlightenment and training of players, that is, the cultivation of players from the age group of 6 or 7 to 15 and 16 years old." If the so-called top players we select don't develop good football habits and awareness at a young age, then they have limited room for improvement. Therefore, the quality of grassroots youth training work needs to be guaranteed, so that it is possible to send good seedlings to the national echelon. ”
In this way, there is also a reason why the Chinese Football Association chooses Japanese coaches who have experience and successful experience in the youth training of players to lead the young national team. A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily learned that in addition to the Chinese Football Association, the sports or football management departments of some key football cities in China are also stepping up the implementation of inviting high-level youth training foreign teachers. For example, an 8-member coaching team sent by the Red Star Club Belgrade, Serbia has arrived in Shenyang in the early morning of the 23rd Beijing time, and will then help the local youth training work. Prior to this, it was not uncommon for Zhejiang, Wuhan and other provinces and cities to choose high-level foreign coaches to guide youth training. In terms of the idea of selecting foreign coaches to improve the quality of football talent training, the Chinese Football Association and other places also coincide.
Historically, the previous Chinese Football Association had a vacillating attitude on the issue of selecting foreign coaches. Taking the Chinese women's football team as an example, the team has been in the hands of Chinese and foreign coaches for nearly 20 years. Objectively speaking, the original intention of the Chinese Football Association to select foreign coaches with advanced coaching concepts and rich coaching experience for the national brand is understandable, but the coaching of foreign coaches must also be in line with the actual situation of Chinese football. The factors that determine the success or failure of foreign coaches are not only limited to the field, they also need the cooperation and help of the Chinese coach and the working team, and whether they can succeed also needs to pass the test of time and actual combat.
It is worth noting that due to the impact of the environment, the Chinese Football Association has become more cautious in the selection of foreign coaches and pursues cost performance. In the selection of specific targets, we will not blindly focus on the so-called fame of the candidates, but will make decisions based on their coaching ability, experience, and cooperation price. Easy to use and inexpensive is one of the important principles of selecting a coach.
Text/Beiqing Sports Xiao Yun