As of now, the Chinese men's soccer team is preparing for a warm-up match against Vietnam in Dalian. According to a report by the Beijing Youth Daily, this training session for the national men's soccer team has seen the integration of a number of newcomers, injecting a strong force into the internal competition rather than just accompanying the veterans.
Compared with the national football team that showed its age during the warm-up in September, the new training lineup of the national football team is full of new ideas. A total of 14 players had not participated in the last training session, including nine from the national soccer team for the Asian Games. Yankovic chose to conduct the last training session before the start of the 36-team World Qualifying Tournament, obviously because the renewal of the team is imminent. What the team needs to be energized is an influx of new or young players.
In the national soccer training squad of this period, only four players, Wu Xi, Eckerson, Wang Dalei and Tan Long, were born before 1990. There are also seven players over the age of 30, namely Wu Lei, Li Lei, Wang Qiuming, Wang Shangyuan, Xie Pengfei, Li Ke and Yan Junling. Currently, among these 11, Yan Junling, Wu Lei, Li Ke, Ackerson, and Wu Xi can occupy the absolute main position for the time being. In other words, more than half of the main candidates need to compete with other international players.
This time, Yankovic's training has already enlisted a batch of young rookies in bulk, who include Fang Hao, He Yupeng, Xie Weijun, Ye Lijiang and Ma Zhen. In terms of the urgency of preparing for the World Qualifiers, they are by no means joining the team just to serve as companions for the veterans, but rather they hope to integrate into the team as soon as possible and become a new force in the fight for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Both the experienced veterans and the young newcomers need to quickly adapt to the rhythm of the national team's preparation in a short period of time and fully understand the technical and tactical intentions of the head coach.
