It's unbelievable that Choi Kang-hee has made the mistake of seeing back-to-back mistakes. Midway through the 2023 season, he dropped Leonardo, who was out on loan, and purchased Pato, the Indonesian league golden boot winner, who sadly did not help the team in any way. It would have been a big loss if he couldn't be rented out or sold in 2024! This time, Choi Kang-hee decided to use his connections to bring in high center forward Zeka and midfielder Kazayishvili from the K-League, hoping that this time, he won't make another mistake! Looking at the K-League players brought in by the Chinese Super League in the past, they have generally been effective.
The Chinese Super League's foreigners from the Korean League, Kim Shin-wook, Son Jun-ho, Malcolm, Kang Sang-woo, Kim Dae-young, Felipe, and Palacios, are all very good, so hopefully Zeca and Kazayishvili will also play well. The tall center forward Zeka not only gives Taishan a pivot point, but he has excellent footwork, speed and breaking ability, and is never a center forward who just stands in front of the goal. This allowed Taishan to show a high level of counter-attacking, applying pressure from the first line of defense with great ferocity!
If Kazayishvili can skillfully organize the game from the front and take on the role of midfield commander, the T&T attack up front will be amazingly superb! When Moises is not on the field, Kressan will drop back to receive the ball away from the opposing goal and reorganize the attack. However, this slows down the tempo of the game in the transition from defense to offense, which Choi Kang-hee had no problem pointing out after his team's 0-3 loss to the Yokohama Mariners. It shows that the reason why we lost is very obvious, so we need to target and strengthen the team.
Is Kaza a "cheaper version of Montillo"? There is no doubt that Montillo's strength is far superior to that of Cazza. Back then, he was compared to Konka, who would dare to underestimate him when he was able to get a place in the powerful Argentine national team? When Montillo was at his peak, he was worth as much as €6 million, but in the three seasons he played for Taishan, his performance was not outstanding. In two seasons, 2014 and 2015, he made a total of 40 appearances, scoring five goals and providing five assists. It wasn't until 2016 that his level of play really showed, making 24 appearances and contributing nine goals and three assists to the relegation effort.
If Kazaishvili can successfully feed the pie to Kressan and Zeca, he will be no less useful than Montillo. In the Chinese Super League, you can't just look at a player's reputation and individual ability, so hopefully he can quickly integrate into the Taishan team and make a bigger contribution than Montillo. In terms of individual strength, Gerdes is definitely better than Kressan, but in terms of team contribution and integration, Gerdes is really not as good as Kressan. Even if De Bruyne and Messi come to the Chinese Super League, they don't necessarily perform the best in terms of stats.
Zhejiang's Li Tixiang and Taishan's Fernando both had 3 assists in the AFC Champions League group stage, making them tied for 4th place on the AFC Champions League assists list! This news made Chinese fans happy, but also regretted that Li Tixiang and Fernando, two outstanding "pie feeders", were not selected for the national team. Local players face the embarrassment of having fewer opportunities to play when they are young and inexperienced. They suddenly make progress at the age of 30 and above, but their physical condition starts to decline. But players like Wu Xi and Zhang Linpeng are also over 30, so why can't Fernando and Li Tixiang be the odd man out as substitutes? Old Jan is too stubborn!
