I believe many fans are aware that in recent years, our Chinese soccer team has explored a style of play that suits its needs, and that is the high center forward tactic. As a matter of fact, more than 30 years ago, we have relied on the high center tactic to play all over Asia. At that time, many teams could not do anything against our high center tactic, especially the Southeast Asian teams. All we had to do was play together and jump up and smash, and there was nothing the other team could do to stop it. At that time, our national soccer team could be considered a feature of the top Asian powerhouses. Our opponents even nicknamed us the "Head Team".
However, as the Chinese professional league became more and more open, we had more ideas and even started to hate the title of the first team. So we started to change the way we play and stopped pursuing the high center forward play. Now we can see Southeast Asian teams start to siege the national soccer team, now just like Thailand. Vietnam can win us in the tournament and even teams like Myanmar are ready to move. The last time the national soccer team played Myanmar at home it was only a narrow win. Without the height of the forward line, we don't seem to stand out for anything.
Fortunately, there is one team in our league that has been sticking to this style of play, and that is Shandong Taishan. Especially after Shandong Taishan brought in Italian senior center forward Pelé, they found that there is a senior center forward in the penalty area, and as long as the upward pass goes to his head, basically the first point is his, and the threat is too big. So we can also see that Taishan can keep the top 5 in the league, while making Japanese and Korean teams helpless in the AFC Champions League. And when other teams saw that, they started to follow suit and buy high centers. In fact, almost all teams are waiting for high centers. For example, Jiangsu, Su Su, China, Ma, Hai, high center are very effective. For example, Shener, high center and high center are waiting.
However, with the end of the golden dollar era of the Chinese Super League, our teams don't have the money to buy foreign aiders and we haven't developed our own senior centers in the past few years, so many teams don't have senior centers available all of a sudden, and this gap is revealed. For example, Shandong Taishan with high center Guo Tianyu won the championship in 2021 season, Wuhan Sanzhen with Malcolm won the championship in 2022 season, while other teams without high center would be a little bit worse. Therefore, high center teams have become the standard for teams to achieve good results.
As a result, many luxury teams, including Beijing Guoan, are also chasing high center forward players. Last season, Guoan was able to finish seventh in the league despite very weak foreign players, which was closely related to Zhang Yuning, who is 185 tall. Zhang Yuning scored 19 goals by himself and got the bronze boot of the Chinese Super League and also the local golden boot. As a matter of fact, besides Zhang Yuning, Guoan also has a high center forward with a height of 190, that is Tian Yuda from Shandong Luneng Soccer School. Before joining Beijing Guoan, Tian Yuda was loaned out by Shandong Luneng to China's Beijing Sports University team. He scored in 2 matches that season for the Beijing Sports Brigade.
However, last season, Zhang Yuning was outstanding, so Tian Yuda didn't have much chance to perform. He only made four appearances in the league, including one start and one assist. In the new season, with Zhang Yuning's return from injury, Tian Yuda couldn't get too many chances. After all, Zhang Yuning is now also the main center of the national soccer team, and it must be a bit difficult to compete with him.
So Tian Yuda made a bold decision. Since the national soccer team's main center forward Zhang Yuning can't compete, can the national soccer team's replacement center forward compete? So just recently, Changchun Yatai officially announced that Tian Yuda joined the club on a one-year loan. In other words, Tian Yuda went to veteran Tan Long.
Couldn't beat Zhang Yuning, just tried Tan Long. I must say, Tian Yuda is still quite bold. Do you think Tian Yuda can play as a main center forward in Yatai? Can he compete with Tan Long? Or become Tan Long's partner? Welcome friends to discuss together in the comment section!
