March 22, Oriental Sports Daily reported that when talking about 35-year-old Cao Jieding and 21-year-old Liu Yujie scored for Shenhua, belonging to Shenhua's "blue-blooded genes" has also completed the continuation and inheritance.
Shenhua and Nantong Zhiyun held a warm-up match at Kangqiao Sports Base. The two sides drew 2-2, with 35-year-old Cao Jieding and 21-year-old Liu Yujie scoring for Shenhua. When Cao Jieding first appeared in the Super League in a Shenhua shirt more than a decade ago, it was still a name that sounded far away to the then 8-year-old Liu Yujie. A decade later, when they played side by side, the "blue-blood gene" of Shenhua completed the continuation and inheritance, which is exactly what Slutsky is looking forward to.
In the warm-up match against Nantong Zhiyun, Shenhua was scored two consecutive goals by their opponents, and finally drew with their opponents with a goal from Liu Yujie. Despite the obvious drop in Shenhua's overall strength, Slutsky didn't emphasize too much on these objective reasons as he was affected by the call-up of national players and the unavailability of two foreigners, Amadou and Malalele. He was more concerned about the content and results of the games available to these Shenhua players. In his words, "there is only one Shenhua team on the pitch".
In Slutsky's opinion, he is still in the early stages of moving towards his set goals, both for himself and for Shenhua. In a recent interview with a TV reporter, he emphasized:Â "After taking over a new team, as a new coach, I need time to communicate with the players on tactics and principles, to explain my ideas to them. I have to explain it to them clearly and how to implement it."
"During the preparation period, we basically used the evening hours every day to organize business studies for our team members, filming the tactical part of each session, editing it and showing it to our team members because they can only understand it in their minds when we make it clear."
"After the first instructional game, the players actually had a lot of questions in their minds. The feedback they gave me was that if we follow this style of play, we might not be up to what we are capable of, we might run more, we might expend more energy, so we gave them some explanations and interpretations."
"For example, we should run more efficiently on the pitch instead of sapping our energy at will. Then we made some targeted arrangements in training. Everyone gradually understood these principle things we asked for. As we go into races, we mature and end up doing really well. In this way, we will continue, because at least in my opinion, this Shenhua team still has 20 to 25 percent room for improvement."
