On the afternoon of June 6, the Chinese Football Association announced a new round of training list for the national team. Unsurprisingly, the list has been widely questioned by fans. Personally, I think that if the list was decided by Jankovic, then he was asking for trouble.
Lack of novelty and too old are still the focus of criticism. Apart from the three keepers, Aixon, Wang Shenchao and Zhang Linmiao are all 34, Wu Lei and Zhang Jiaqi are 32 and Li Lei is 31; others such as Sun Guowen, Wang Qiuming, Wang Shangyuan and Xie Pengfei are all around 30. In other words, 30+ veterans make up more than half of the team, not much change from March. If Wu Xi hadn't gotten injured, the average age would still be up.
It doesn't matter if you're older. In Yankovic's words, he is interested in the players' form. The question is, how good can the form of Li Lei, Zhang Jiaqi and Zhang Linmiao be? Especially compared to the season before going abroad, Li Lei has dropped significantly. In the just-concluded 11th round, it was Li Lei's cheap mistake in the 22nd minute that caused Guoan to concede for the first time. Apart from Li Lei, what advantages does he have over the 27 year old Zhong Yihao?
Since he has to be part of the national soccer team, why not use this warm-up against weaker opponents to scout other young players? Besides, with Deng Hanwen and tomorrow's prima donna at right back and Jiang Guangtai and Wei Zhen at center back, Shi Ke should be the replacement. As a matter of fact, Zhu Chenjie, Jiang Shenglong and even Wu Shaochong could have been selected if not for the Asian Games, and Zhang Linmiao's selection this time is really redundant.
And Stanley Wong. What was the reason for calling him in? Great league performance? Look at the top 12. Maybe he's improved his level of play? If the answer is no, can the national team expect these veterans to make it to the 2026 World Cup?
Even more unbelievable is that Wei Shihao was injured in the 11th round of the tournament, yet he made the list. Fans can't help but wonder: was this list already set? Even if it was already set, the 11th round was the match on June 4, did Jankovic or the FA fail to verify the list before announcing it? Including Wang Shangyuan, who missed 3 consecutive matches after round 8 and didn't even make it to Henan's bench list, recruiting him less well than Cai Huikang and Baitijiang.
The fact that Li Yuanyi, who is not below in terms of confrontation and far above in terms of passing and offensive organization compared to Wang Shangyuan, was rejected simply because of his low number of league appearances is very hard to understand. Look at the backs on the roster, only the half-assed Xu Xin is really organized. Wang Qiuming is extremely bombastic, but he's not an organized midfielder, but a reckless rampaging bruiser. This kind of player can't play as a starter in a game and can only be the odd man out when the score is down.
In other words, Jankovic should have a longer-term vision. The back of the national team should look more into Wu Xi's replacement, that is to say, pay more attention to those players with better skills, such as Li Tixiang, instead of accumulating "engineers". If Wu Xi can't play for some reason, will Xu Xin bring Wang Qiuming to "fill in"?
Along with Li Yuanyi and Li Tixiang, Li Ke should be selected. Due to previous injuries, Li Ke has not made many appearances this season. However, as a member of the training roster, Li Ke's selection should be symbolic. If he fully recovers his form, he is at least a rotation starter for future preseason or Asian Cup. At the beginning, Li Ke and Abdu Hemiti were the only Chinese Super League players who could carry Hulk.
As for Prince Ming, I'm sure even the home team fans thought his inclusion was unexpected. Making the national team based on just one game is a joke. If you have to find an impact striker, how about Xie Weijun. To be clear, if Zhang Yuning couldn't play at that time or was in bad shape, I'm afraid Xie Weijun, who can really play as a center forward, is only 26 years old and 1.90 meters tall, except for Ackerson.
I'm sure most people think that the mission of this training session is to play two warm-up games. But if Jankovic thinks so too, he is very wrong. Sooner or later we will choose to pay for it, instead of using the limited opportunity to scout more promising players and find replacements for the starters. The next training session for the national team will only have two opportunities, in September and October. The preseason will begin in November. This training roster has changed. What's the point other than to dazzle people? To put it bluntly, if the performance in the November preliminaries does not meet expectations, I'm afraid that there will be other national soccer coaches for the Asian Cup next January.
Through the two warm-up matches in March and this list, Jankovic's ability has been made clear. To be honest, apart from shouting slogans and getting people's blood pumping, the selection and technical and tactical ability can be described in one word: mediocre.
