With zero goals in three matches, the national soccer team achieved its worst result in the Asian Cup. As the first of the national soccer team, Wu Lei was also criticized for missing the "granny goal" opportunity in the Lebanon match after two shots in three matches.
A platform even directly put forward "Qatar Asian Cup, Wu Lei played. 171 minutes, zero goals and only two shots. 171 minutes, zero goals only two shots, his national team career should not end?" Asked the question!
But you can criticize the state and role of Wu Lei, but at this time, discussing the topic of whether Wu Lei should enter the national team, at best, can only achieve the purpose of "attracting attention".
In fact, except for a few returnees, the Chinese team basically plays in the Chinese Super League! One of the key measures of whether a striker should be in the national team then is league stats.
In the 2023 season, Wu Lei scored 18 goals (1 penalty) the Silver Boot of the Chinese Super League. Among local players, Tan Long, another who scored 10 goals. Wang Ziming and Eckerson (two penalties) later scored 8 goals. Then came Yu Hanchao, Lu Wenjun and Wang Qiuming, who scored six goals.
After one season in the Chinese Super League, there are only seven Chinese players in total who have scored more than five goals.
Wang Qiuming is a midfielder. Even if Han Chao were to disregard his 37+ years of age, he has been "blacklisted" by the state for having his license plate altered! Of the remaining five, in addition to Wu Lei, one is Tan Long, who has already been called a waste of space at the Asian Cup, another is Ekerson, who has gained weight since becoming a naturalized player, and another is Lu Wenjun, who has never represented China once in his career, and three of his ages are older than Wu Lei.
The rest of Prince Ming is suited to his age, but you can see the spread of his eight goals, four against bad goals and two against Cangzhou who took a strategic rotation.
In addition, Wu Lei also contributed 6 assists in the 2023 season, ranking 8th in the Chinese Super League on the assists list; among local players, only 7 assists Barton assists more than Wu Lei.
So here's the question, you don't think Wu Lei should be in the national team, so who could take his place based on his performance in the 23rd season of the Chinese Super League?
With a severe shortage of local strikers, the Chinese Super League Silver Boot + League MVP + second most assisted player locally, who scored 18 goals in one season, scored only five goals in the whole season. Which coach can not use Wu Lei when strikers with, six goals, or even only two or three goals are put together and compared? Don't recruit Wu Lei?
Of course, many are saying that Wu Lei scored a lot of goals purely because Oscar was feeding the cake from behind. However, many overlook the fact that Oscar returned to Brazil in the first phase of 2022 and didn't return until the final FA Cup.
So returning midway through the 2022 season, what did Wu Lei deliver without Oscar's support? A total of 12 games played and 11 goals scored!
And Vuillard played 12 league games, and the anti-epidemic policy was gradually liberalized. Before the frequent attrition of teams (only the last four rounds of that year teams were sent to the YMCA or forfeited due to the epidemic).
Of course, for a variety of reasons, the 2022 season is also the season where local attackers, get the most chances to perform. Local strikers with 5 or more goals this year, Zhang Yuning 30 for 19 goals, Lin Liangming 28 for 12 goals, Tan Long 26 for 10 goals, Yang Liyu 32 for 9 goals. Zhu Jianrong 8 goals in 23 games, Lu Wenjun 8 goals in 32 games, Chen Pu 8 goals in 28 games, Xie Pengfei 8 goals in 30 games. Barton 7 goals in 24 matches, Huang Zichang 7 goals in 31 matches, Zhong Yihao 7 goals in 32 matches, Shang Yin 7 goals in 30 matches, Xie Weijun 7 goals in 30 matches, Zhang Wei 6 goals in 21 matches, Wei Shihao 6 goals in 29 matches.
Simply put, in the 2022 season, without Oscar's support, Wu Lei, who came back midway through the season to play 12 games, also has fewer goal-scoring stats than Lin Liangming and Zhang Yuning in the local scorers' table.
And there are only 22 rounds of the 21st season of the Chinese Super League where domestic players have scored more than 5 goals, 11 goals for Ekerson, 10 goals for Guo Tianyu, Zhang Yuning, 7 goals for Lu Wenjun and 6 goals for Wei Shihao.
20 season of the Chinese Super League only 20 rounds, domestic players scored more than 5 goals Wei Shihao, 6 goals Zhang Yuning, Wulin, Eckerson. In the same year, Tan Long was the only double goal scored by China A.
It can be argued that since the tournament-based Chinese Super League, Zhang Yuning, Ackerson, Wu Lei, Lu Wenjun, Tan Long, and Wei Shihao have only been able to achieve more than five domestic players (and at least two seasons of that standard) in the last four years.
Of those, only Lv, who Jankovic never recruited, and Ackerson, who was waived, the other four players have been very stable on the national team. ,
In this case, there are very few domestic players in the Chinese Super League who score more than five goals per year, and there are no options at all for the national soccer team's forward line!
If Yankovic did use some perennial Chinese Super League striker with less than 5 goals instead of Wu Lei's spot on the roster, by now the people who hacked Wu Lei would already be criticizing why Yankovic didn't bring Wu Lei with him!
