Axon was the first player in history to be selected for the Chinese national football team without Chinese ancestry.
According to the BBC, this week, the Chinese national football team once again embarked on the road to qualify for the World Cup, competing in the 2022 Qatar World Cup Asian Qualifiers. Unlike in the past, this time there are two players who will attract people's attention in unprecedented ways.
A 26-year-old player formerly known as Nico Yennaris was born and raised in London, England, while another 30-year-old striker Elkeson de oliveira cardoso was still a Brazilian citizen two months ago. They are prominently included in the list of 23-man players who left for the Chinese men's national football team to play away against the Maldives.
Both are widely regarded as the main players of the new Chinese men's national football team. In the match played on September 10, as long as one of them appears, it will make history - for the first time in Chinese football, naturalized naturalized players will represent the national team in an official FIFA match.
The introduction of naturalized players to represent the national team was an idea that had been around for years but had never been implemented until 2019. According to Chinese media reports, one of the conditions for China's Italian head coach Marcello Lippi to return to the national team earlier this year was that the team began to introduce naturalized players.
Italian World Cup champion Lippi has had an extraordinary influence on Chinese football in recent years.
The legendary World Cup champion led China out of office in January, but returned after just 119 days. Since then, naturalized naturalized players have been a hot topic in the Chinese media around the new national team.
Yannaris's current Chinese name is Li Ke, and Elkeson is officially renamed Chinese Axon. They are two naturalized players on the current Chinese squad, but in the past 8 months, there are far more than two foreign players who have gone through or are in the process of naturalizing in China.
Who are these players? What kind of "crooked nuts" can play for the Chinese team? In addition to the need to comply with a series of Chinese laws and FIFA regulations, let's take a look at what these players need to do to become Chinese citizens.
1. At least one of the parents is Chinese
Chinese fans always joke that there are two kinds of football in the world: one is football and the other is Chinese football. Chinese certainly wants to change the status quo of their football, but they have no intention of changing the Chinese nature of their football.
So, when it comes to really starting to think about naturalized players, China's first focus is on players of Chinese descent in football developed countries.
In February 2019, Hou Yongyong made his debut for Beijing Guoan in the Chinese Football Association Super Cup.
In January, Chinese Premier League club Beijing Sinobo Guoan announced the signing of Li Ke from The United Kingdom and John Hou Saeter from Norway, both of whom are registered as Chinese players and do not occupy the limited number of foreign aid places in the Chinese Super League regulations.
In this way, they became the first naturalized naturalized players in the history of Chinese football.
Neither of them had lived in China before, but their mothers were both Chinese, so according to FIFA regulations, they were eligible to play for the national team after naturalization.
After moving to China and playing in the Chinese Super League for a few months, they responded positively to their vision of a possible future opportunity to play for the Chinese team.
Hou Yongyong (left) and Li Ke were the first naturalized naturalized players in the history of the Chinese Super League.
"My mother was born in China, and playing for China is also an honor for my family," Hou Yongyong told Chinese media earlier this year.
Li Ke, on the other hand, said he "always knew his roots were in China."
Currently named to the national team squad and likely to be the main player, Li Ke has already made one appearance for China in a friendly match in June. Still, Mr. Hou, 21, is seen as a future candidate.
2. Born in a well-known club in Europe
Although naturalized naturalized players are no different from a new policy of Chinese football this year, it does not mean that the Chinese Football Association and clubs will strive for naturalization for any player who meets the legal conditions.
The primary goal of China's football development has always been to make the men's national team reach the final round of the World Cup, but since the Chinese team entered the World Cup in South Korea and Japan in 2002, it has never qualified from the qualifiers. Even in the "Youth" World Cup under the age of 20, China has not been qualified for 14 years.
Lee comes from the premier league club Arsenal's youth wing.
In China's football reform program, there are youth training programs that invest a lot of money, but the introduction of naturalized players is intended to be successful for the national team in the short term, such as qualifying for the World Cup in Qatar.
Lee ke is a product of the Premier League powerhouse Arsenal's youth training system, while Hou Yongyong holds the record of the youngest player in the history of Norwegian club Rosenberg's adult team (16 years and 101 days).
Hou Yongyong is from The Norwegian Club Rosenberg.
Moreover, in England and Norway, they each represented the youth national team of their country of birth.
In February, guangzhou evergrande, a seven-time Chinese Super League champion, signed Tyias Browning of Everton in the Premier League. Chinese media reported in June that his late maternal grandfather, a native of Jiangmen, Guangdong Province, had moved to Britain in the 1960s, giving him a quarter of Chinese ancestry.
Browning reportedly acquired Chinese citizenship in July, though FIFA is still reviewing his qualification for the Chinese national team.
3. Or, stand out in the Chinese Super League
In August, China took another step forward, helping Axon, who has no Chinese ancestry, to complete naturalization and call him into the national team. The striker has been playing in the Chinese Super League for 6 years as a foreign aid, which meets FIFA's requirement that unbreviated immigrants must reside in the country of naturalization for 5 years before they can represent the national team.
His selection means that even if you have no Chinese ancestry or Chinese relatives at all, the Chinese national team may still open its doors to you. Of course, it is not easy to do this.
Before becoming a naturalized chinese citizen, Axon had been playing in the Chinese Super League as a foreign aid for six years. He is the all-time top scorer in the Chinese Super League.
Why can Axon be a precedent? He is the most scoring player in the history of the Chinese Super League, scoring 103 goals to date.
Now it seems that Chinese fans and Lippi are looking forward to him being able to form a forward combination of the Chinese team with Wu Lei, who stayed in the Spanish First Division, and attack the team at a critical moment.
What if that's not enough? Ricardo Goulart, another prolific striker who plays for Guangzhou Evergrande like Axon, has renounced his Brazilian citizenship and is awaiting an application for a Chinese passport.
4. Renounce the original nationality
Lionel Messi can continue to play for the Argentine national team while holding a Spanish passport, but in China, this will not work.
Chinese nationality law does not allow citizens to have dual citizenship, so once approved for Chinese naturalization, they must give up passports from any other country.
Li Ke (right) has already represented China in a friendly match against the Philippines in June, after renouncing his British citizenship.
Foreigners going to China to work have been on the rise in recent years, and now some people are giving up their citizenship in the United Kingdom or Norway in order to play for the Chinese team, which reflects the growing influence of Chinese passports.
5. Also have a serious Chinese name
If a naturalized player can't master the Chinese fluently for a while, he must at least have a name that makes fans all over China call it more affectionately.
Those who have an impression of Asian football in the 1990s and early 2000s will remember the Japanese names of the players of Brazilian descent in the Japanese national team.
Ruy Ramos's name became Lyvaux, wagner lopez became Rubius, and Alessandro Santos became Lord Santos.
The names of these naturalized players who are now naturalized in China must also undergo similar "Sinicization".
Axon may continue to make history in Chinese football.
Li Ke's name comes from a transliteration of his English name "nico", and Axon's name follows a similar logic.
Hou Yongyong, on the other hand, was exactly his original Chinese name, with his mother's surname Hou.
A naturalized player who has not been selected for the national team and has received relatively little media attention is considered by some to be the most appropriate one with a Chinese name.
Aloisio dos santos goncalves, who plays for the Guangdong South China Tigers in China's second-tier football league, was granted Chinese citizenship in July, and in registration documents disclosed by the media, his Chinese name was Luo Guofu.
Browning (left) is a naturalized naturalized player operated by Guangzhou Evergrande, but his national team qualifications are subject to FIFA review.
When the media reported browning's journey to find his roots in China, it was mentioned that his maternal grandfather's surname was Jiang, and according to the family genealogy, Browning's Chinese name may be "Jiang Guangtai".
Perhaps, these will be the logics that will be used more often when the names of naturalized players are sinicized in the future.
6. Be able to sing the national anthem
"Get up! Get up! Get up! ”
This is the most iconic lyric in the Chinese national anthem, the March of the Volunteer Army, and perhaps the easiest to learn for Li Ke and Axon.
However, before they put on the Jersey of the Chinese team and stand in the queue of the pre-game national anthem ceremony, they must learn not only this sentence, but also be able to sing the entire national anthem.
Naturalized naturalized players are required to comply with a number of regulations of the Chinese Football Association.
This is one of the regulations of the Chinese Football Association for naturalized players, and it is also what they need to do after becoming Chinese players.
The rest, of course, is for them to help the team win on the field.
According to Chinese media reports, Li Ke and Axon will not say much Chinese at present, but they are "studying hard", and in addition to singing the national anthem, their most highly anticipated contribution is of course to make the Chinese national anthem sound in the Qatar World Cup.
Ultimately, the effectiveness of the naturalization policy needs to be verified on the field.