I believe that old fans will know that our national soccer team used to be nicknamed the "head team" in Asia. That is to say, in the past, when we were still at the top level in Asia, our national soccer team was also a very distinctive team. This was characterized by its ability to play a high center forward tactic, with two wings and a tall and fast striker, which was unbeatable and made many Asian opponents suffer. Especially the Southeast Asian teams, they basically could not defend against us, and our high centers were enough to explode them.
But I don't know when our Chinese soccer started to hate the title of "head team" and started to try to get rid of it. The high center forward tactic was abandoned, and high centers were no longer trained. More than a decade later, our national soccer team has basically no high center forward available. However, after we were no longer the "head team", a serious problem arose, namely, we couldn't play Southeast Asian teams. Without a high point in the front line, our players are not as good as our opponents in terms of technique, speed and agility. Except for the physical confrontation ability, we are almost behind the Southeast Asian teams. That's why we saw the national soccer team lose to Thailand twice at home, lose to Vietnam on the road, draw with the Philippines, and face Myanmar with a narrow one-goal win in an embarrassing situation.
In addition, the national soccer team's most recent victory against Thailand came in the Asian Cup knockout stage, where they trailed by one goal in the first half and were replaced in the second half by high center forward Xiao Zhi, who ultimately turned the tables on their opponents with a 2-1 victory by height pressure. In the league, a team that always maintains a good level of competition through the tactic of high center forward is Shandong Taishan. After the introduction of Italian international high center forward Pelé, they got out of control and started all kinds of bombardment in the Chinese Super League and AFC Champions League, keeping the top five in the league in the Chinese Super League, and in the AFC Champions League, they also made it impossible for the Japanese and South Korean teams to find the north, and the goal-scoring efficiency was really too high.
Of course, it was the high efficiency of the Shandong Taishan team that caused everyone to follow suit for a while, and so the Chinese Super League set off a wave of high center forwards. But everyone realized the high center tactic by bringing in foreign high centers, because we haven't trained high centers for many years, so there are too few high centers available domestically.
But for the past two years, there has been one local senior center that everyone is really excited about. He is Guo Tianyu, a 24-year-old senior center from Shandong Taishan. At 1.92 meters tall, he is physically strong but also has some speed and good foot skills. It can be said that in terms of physical condition, Guo Tianyu can definitely be regarded as Pelé's successor.In 2021, Guo Tianyu scored 10 goals in a single season and became the local silver boot and was recognized by everyone. Due to the superior height and physical condition, it makes everyone feel that Guo Tianyu will be the future high bomber of the national soccer striker.
However, an unpleasant study abroad experience in 2022 caused Guo Tianyu's upward curve to suddenly drop. The study abroad didn't result in a few games, and he never found his past form back in the Chinese Super League. Even many fans felt that Guo Tianyu's study abroad this time was a chicken-and-egg game that quickly wasted itself. So many fans began to worry that if Guo Tianyu couldn't make it, did we have any other options?
We might not have been able to figure out who that person would be before, but recently a young 19-year-old player has given us hope. He's playing for Shandong Taishan's 19-year-old senior center forward, Bayhramu. Born at the Luneng Soccer School as well, Baiheramu is the younger brother of Guo Tianyu and currently stands at 1.88 meters. He excelled in both the AFC Champions League and FA Cup last year. Recently, he has shown great strength at height in the national brand games.
Just recently our u20 national football team traveled to West Asia for a warm-up match, where they played a warm-up U20 match against Syria. The result of the match was that we lost 1:2 to our opponents. Both of our goals conceded came from wingers who were broken down by the opposition and crossed in, and then the defense leaked in the middle of the field. Our goals came from the unbeatable pressure of a high center forward. It was then in the second half that China used a free kick to cross the ball into the penalty area before Byhramu jumped up to head the ball in and help his team equalize.
Although the National Youth ultimately lost, Byhramu's goal made us realize one thing. Our Chinese soccer is perfect for high center tactics, and high center tactics are by far our best scoring tool, so how can we throw away our best weapon?
Do you think Byeloramu will be the next Guo Tianyu? Will our national soccer team make further progress if we get more good senior wingers in the future? Feel free to discuss in the comments section.
