On October 4, Beijing time, in the second round of AFC Champions League Group J, Wuhan Sanzhen lost 1-3 to Pohang Iron Foot on the road and suffered their first defeat in the AFC Champions League. In this game, Wuhan Three Town actually started well, but finally swallowed the bitter fruit of loss. In addition to Xie Pengfei's red card, Yan Dinghao, who made a fatal mistake, was also the "culprit" of the team's loss. This was once generally favored "Zheng Zhi successor", it seems difficult to restore the courage of the year.
In the 54th minute of the game, Yan Dinghao took the ball in the midfield, but before he could send the ball out, a nearby Pohang player suddenly grabbed it and then launched a quick counterattack. Zeka took the ball and fired a shot to make it 2-1, which dashed Wuhan Sanzhen's hopes of holding on to the 1-1 scoreline. From the break to the goal, the whole attack of Pohang Railway took no more than 20 seconds, and all the triggers were Yan Dinghao's fatal mistake in the midfield.
In the whole game, Yan Dinghao was basically invisible except for a yellow card for a foul. As the midfield organizer of Wuhan Sanzhen, Yan Dinghao's passing success rate was only 70%, and the accuracy of several "big kicks" was also very poor. In the 67th minute, the unbearable Mian Takada finally replaced him.
This fight actually epitomizes Yan Dinghao's recent past. In the past month or so, Yan Dinghao's form has been hardly satisfactory. In the first round of the AFC Champions League, he almost completely lost the midfield after coming on as a substitute; in the final round of the tournament against Shandong Taishan, his performance was also very low, and he made a fatal mistake in this game. After Stanciu's transfer, Wuhan Three Town had hoped that Yan Dinghao would take responsibility for the midfield organization, but now that hope has largely been dashed.
I thought that by leaving Evergrande's place of wrongdoing and joining Wuhan Sanzhen, Yan Dinghao would have a second spring in his career, but for now, the transfer won't be able to save him from his slump. As we all know, Yan Dinghao had an amazing season in which Guangzhou Evergrande won the 2019 Chinese Super League title, serving as the core of Evergrande's organization in many matches. At that time, as a rare organized midfielder in China, he was also named as Zheng Zhi's successor. However, in recent years, Yan Dinghao's development has been very unsatisfactory. After joining Wuhan Sanzhen this season, he has only played full games twice, and the rest of the time he has either been on the bench or replaced early. Aside from his performance, his physical condition seems to be getting farther and farther away from his peak.
Now Yan Dinghao is 25 years old, but his national soccer career, still only have the experience of being selected for the training team last year, never represented the national soccer team, even in the era of Yankovic's youth, Yan Dinghao still did not have the opportunity to be in the national soccer team, which can explain this problem. If Yan Dinghao continues to play like this, I'm afraid that Zheng Zhi's former successor, who wants to be selected for the national soccer team, is very far away.
