In 2023, the U15 national junior won the championship
After Cheng Yaodong's national Olympic team still lost to Japan and South Korea after years of intensive training, the only one left with the task of playing is the U16 national youth team, which pins the hopes of fans on the future, last year the team won the U15 East Asian Cup in a row, and did not fall behind in the clash with Japan and South Korea, and finally defeated the Japanese national youth in the final on penalties to win the championship.
At that time, the U15 Chinese team was not officially formed, and many players were temporarily drawn from Shandong Taishan and Evergrande Football School, but it was such a "grass platform team" that dared to fight hard to win the championship.
U16 national junior team training list
After the East Asian Cup, the 08 national junior team was officially established, the Football Association hired a Japanese coach Kenichi Uemura as the coach, in February this year, under the leadership of Kenichi Uemura, the U16 national junior team began to train intensively, and 9 people from Shandong Taishan were selected in the training list, and 8 people from Evergrande Football School were listed, the most interesting of which is the mixed-race player Zhang Hongfu.
Zhang Hongfu and his mother
Born in 2008 from Evergrande Football School, Zhang Hongfu is of mixed Chinese and African descent, his mother is from China and his father is from Tanzania, and he has made great contributions to the Chinese team winning the championship as captain in the East Asian Cup. As a defender with a knife who is 1.9 meters tall, he may become the core of the national football team's defense in the future.
The greater the expectations of many people in Chinese football, the greater the disappointment, after the U16 assembled to go to Europe for training, they were quickly beaten back to their original form in the face of stronger opponents, and they conceded 20 goals in the last four games.
That included a heavy 0-8 defeat against Borussia Mönchengladbach's echelon. In the face of the echelon of the Bundesliga professional team, our players did not have an advantage in terms of technology or body, and finally returned defeated, and the national junior team also played a few teaching matches with some other Bundesliga echelons, and the opponents were generally U14 and U15 echelons, but the national junior team still did not take too much advantage, and the result of the game was more than one win or too little.
After the end of the German training, the U16 national junior team went to Romania to participate in the Four Nations Invitational Tournament, against Romanian, Danish and Polish players of the same age, in these three games, the U16 national team lost one draw and two losses and conceded 12 goals.
In the first game, the national youth team defeated the host Romania 0:4, and in the second game with Denmark, the national youth team once led by 3 goals, but finally failed to hold the win, and was forced to draw by the opponent 4:4, and lost to Poland 1:4 in the third game. The three opponents are not the strongest teams in Europe, but they can also show the current gap in Chinese football.
The shortcomings of the national Olympic team and the national teamThe U16 youngsters are "in the same vein", the defense is easy to lose concentration, the physical fitness in the second half cannot keep up with being penetrated by the opponent, and the offensive line lacks coordination and the tactics are simple......
The new coach Kenichi Murakami is also facing a huge test, and he still needs a process of running in and getting familiar with the team, but a mess of training results may also make his coaching journey end early, and he shoulders the heavy responsibility of the national junior team to hit the World Junior Championships again after 20 years.
The coach who led the U15 to win the East Asian Cup last year was the Japanese coach of Evergrande Football School, Masaaki Nakamura, who also had a high call for him to continue coaching, but Masaaki Nakamura did not have the qualifications to lead the national team, and finally the Chinese Football Association chose Kenichi Murakami, who has also been deeply involved in the Chinese youth field for many years, and the team's immediate goal is the 2024 U17 Asian Cup qualifiers and next year's U17 Asian Cup, but the poor performance of the young players still makes people doubt how far they can go.
No wonder some fans sighed: After watching the performance of the U16 national youth, there is no hope for Chinese football in 20 years!