It is no secret that the current level of Chinese soccer is really low in the world. There are many explanations as to where the problem lies. Now, media person Ji Yuyang has published a social article from the perspective of the game. The media person pointed out that there is a big gap between Chinese national team players and European national team players in the game.
He said, from the Internet, in 2023, Wu Lei made 30 appearances in the league, 1 cup match in club matches, 3 cup matches last season, 1 match in the AFC Champions League, 8 friendly matches for the national team, and 2 matches in the World Preliminary League, and in 2023, he made about 45 appearances.
Another popular player, Liu Yang, plays for Shandong Taishan. He has appeared in over 40 games this season, while Zhu Chenjie has played around 38 games. All in all, Chinese national players appear in about 40 games a year.
That's a big gap compared to other internationals playing in Europe. If you count the number of games played in December, Spurs could still play 58 times without the Champions League. If there were other European club competitions, European players would have more games in a year. For example, Rodri will have almost 70 games in 2023. In fact, 70 games is also the basic standard number for international players from wealthy families. This number is much more than Chinese internationals, and the European game is very strong and completely different from that of Chinese players.
At the moment our players are not in the same league in terms of technical ability, intensity of play and frequency of play. From this perspective, it is too difficult to catch up with top level soccer. The only solution at the moment is to help some players to study abroad, but this is not easy. Chinese players are not very willing to play abroad themselves. Secondly, it is difficult for other European national league teams to accept them due to the poor level, which seems to be an unsolvable problem.
Our international players only have to play about 40 games a year, while players from Europe, America, Japan and Korea play about 70 games a year, so the gap between us and them is about 30 games. These 30 games determine the players' form. Although the national soccer team trains often, players can only find the feeling of the game better in real games. Some fans also think that players only need to play 40 games a year in China, and that the overall level of the Chinese Super League is relatively low, so the players are really used to such a comfort zone, where there is more money, less work and closer to home, but as soon as they go to the international arena, they are beaten straight back by their opponents.
Nowadays, this group of national soccer teams basically can't be counted on anymore. For Chinese soccer to develop, it is still necessary to start with youth training, digging up more soccer youngsters and letting them go abroad earlier. This is the most ideal way.
