April 15 (Xinhua) -- 81-year-old Xu Genbao personally led the Shanghai men's soccer all-weather team to South Korea before the training intensive training, accepted an interview with local media. At the 2025 Grand Bay Area National Games, Xu Genbao said the team will have an impact on the gold medal.
Regarding this Korean training program, Xu Genbao introduced, "This time we got an appointment with a stronger team, who are a bit older than us, and the main purpose is to hone our lineup and playing style. Due to the relatively few opportunities to play domestically, we had to go abroad to participate in more matches." By playing in tournaments, I think maybe it's more about working on their mentality. I definitely want to participate in these tournaments, especially now that the players need to strengthen their coaches, so they have to do it themselves. Sometimes they'll jump in and do some maneuvers and if they don't listen they'll pull down their ears."
If China's soccer can reach the level of Japan and South Korea, fans should be very satisfied because then they can enjoy the matches in the World Cup every time."
Xu Genbao said that as of now, the level of Shanghai men's all-conference soccer team is mostly around five or six in the national competitions, so it is more difficult to reach the gold medal target compared to before. But now that we have set the goal, we will strive for it."
