The 24th round of the Chinese Super League (CSL) is all over after Wuhan Sanzhen beat Nantong Zhiyun 4-2 at home. Next, the Super League will enter a half-month break to make way for the national soccer team to prepare for the Asian Games and World Cup qualifiers.
Compared to the Asian Games, the two World Qualifying Group matches to be held in November this year are more important, which will have a direct impact on whether or not the national soccer team will be able to qualify for the World Qualifying Asian Top 10. In order to prepare for these two World Qualifying group matches, the head coach of the national soccer team, Jankovic, has recently made several trips to the site to watch the Chinese Super League (CSL), just to investigate the status of the international players of the teams and to find out some newcomers who are in excellent form.
However, as Jankovic has not taken over the national soccer team for long and has never coached a Chinese Super League team, the latest edition of the national team's starting lineup should not change much. Shandong Taishan, Beijing Guoan, Shanghai Harbor, Wuhan Sanzhen and several other Chinese Super League teams will remain international players.
Shandong Taishan's Wang Dalei, Liu Binbin and Chen Pu; Beijing Guoan's Li Lei and Wang Ziming; Shanghai Port's Yan Junling, Zhang Linmiao, Jiang Guangtai and Wang Shenchao, as well as Liu Dianzha, Gao Junyi and Xie Pengfei from Wuhan's three towns should all be on the list for the national soccer team's warm-up matches in September.
Of course, the new national football team can never be completely unchanged. Some "newcomers" have already entered Yankovic's vision, such as Zhang Xizhe and Li Ke, the two midfielders of Guoan team.
After encountering the new coach Suarez's "cold reception", Zhang Xizhe recently re-entered Guoan's starting lineup, becoming the core of the team's attacking midfield organization. In the past three rounds of the league, Zhang Xizhe scored a goal and delivered two assists. In addition, he also created an opponent's one oops goal. Jankovic should have seen four goals in three games.
Since July, naturalized player Li Ke has once again become the main back of Guoan. His aggressive running, strong body and excellent sweeper ability formed a barrier in front of Guoan's backline. In offense, Li Ke also performed quite well, showing the strength of a former Arsenal player. As a result, Li Ke's recent return to the national soccer team is becoming more and more popular.
In addition to Li Ke, Shandong Taishan's naturalized player Fernando has also been making high noise about being selected for the national team recently. However, Fernando's current form is still not back to his best and is at most 60% of his previous form. Due to lack of stamina, Fernando could only be replaced by Choi Kang-hee in the last 20 minutes of the match. This problem will directly affect his selection to the national team.
With the addition of "newcomers", some of the "old men" of the national soccer team will miss the new national team list, and Wei Shihao of Wuhan Sanzhen is one of them. Wei Shihao was banned for six matches by the Football Association for insulting referee Ma Ning in the league. As a rule, players penalized by the FA cannot be selected for the national team. Therefore, Wei Shihao will be dismissed from the current national soccer roster.
Another failed international is Tianjin Jinmen Tigers' Tomorrow, who has been reimbursed for the season and will definitely not be able to return to the national soccer team in the short term after Zhang Lin broke his left foot against Shanghai Harbor. Wei Shihao and Tomorrow will be replaced by Shenhua's Wu Xi and Tianjin Jinmen Tigers' Barton. These two players have been playing very well in the recent league matches.
As things stand, Jankovic will fine-tune his national soccer team's roster for September, further examining the international players' form in the two warm-up matches against Syria and Malaysia in order to determine the starting and substitute lineups for November's preseason group stage.
