June 23, FIFA released a new issue of men's national team rankings, China's men's football rankings fell out of the top ten in Asia, ranked 78th in the world, 11th in Asia, the worst result in the last four years.
With national team building stalled after the 12th round of the tournament that ended at the end of March, and with just weeks to go before the East Asian Cup, questions about selecting a squad for the tournament still hang in the air ......
At the moment, the national soccer team is not even clear on who the head coach will be, let alone move forward with anything else. The picture in this article is provided by ic.
Li Xiaopeng, the head coach of the national football team, has disappeared for a long time.
FIFA's official website shows that the 78th ranking is the lowest international ranking for the national soccer team in the last four years, having reached as high as 65th.
In the 2021 year-end international rankings, the national football team was ranked 74th in the world and 8th in Asia. Entering 2022, FIFA released three international rankings in February, March and June, and the national soccer team's rankings slipped consecutively.
Due to the poor performance in the Top 12 and the failure to organize matches according to FIFA's stipulated international competition days in early June, it was expected that the national football team slipped in the rankings. What is even more worrying is that the construction of the national team has suddenly come to a standstill due to subjective and objective factors after the Top 12 tournament.
On the one hand, considering that the current situation is not suitable for international matches, as well as the need to make time for the Chinese Super League, the national football team did not organize matches on international competition days in June and September. On the other hand, the management of the national team is not in the hands of the Football Association, resulting in no clear statement on issues such as the retention or departure of the head coach.
According to Sports Weekly, in November last year, after the 12 strong match, the management of the national football team is no longer in the hands of the Football Association, but by the higher level of the State General Administration of Sports set up a "leading working group" to take over, the relevant leaders personally as the head of the group, to fully take over the national football team. Like the head coach Li Xiaopeng is also not hired by the Association, but a higher level of departments directly selected.
In this case, the current national team manager Li Xiaopeng's retention is not decided by the FA level, but by a higher level of authority. But now, a higher level of authority has no intention of intervening in the national football team and head coach Li Xiaopeng's problems, which makes Li Xiaopeng himself in an extremely embarrassing situation.
A phenomenon of concern is that in the past, the Chinese Super League in the process, the national team manager will personally visit the scene to examine the players, but this year, the Chinese Super League has been carried out in five rounds, the national team manager Li Xiaopeng disappeared from public view ......
The National Football League came to a standstill after the 12th round.
East Asian Cup team plan takes several twists and turns
After the end of the twelve-team tournament at the end of March, the Football Association decided to replace the national football team by the U23 men's football team to play in the East Asian Cup according to the situation and condition at that time.
The consideration at the time was that the Hangzhou Asian Games were about to begin and the U23 men's soccer team needed more real-world opportunities, and in preparation for the Asian Games, the FA also planned to have three overage players - Zhang Linpeng, Wu Xi and Zhang Yuning - join the U23 men's soccer team to compete in the East Asian Cup and the Asian Games.
Now with the change of venue for the East Asian Cup, the postponement of the Hangzhou Asian Games, plus the change of venue for the 2023 Asian Cup, a series of objective circumstances have fundamentally changed, forcing the Football Association to also have to make adjustments again in the construction of the national force.
The first is the issue of calling up overage players. Since there are no Asian Games matches this year, the question of whether these three specific overage players are still needed will need to be revisited; after all, the attribution of the overage quota for the Asian Games in a year's time will surely change to some extent.
Secondly, it is the form of the entire team, after Japan replaced China as the host country of the current East Asian Cup, the Japanese Football Association has previously expressed the hope that the Football Association will be able to send a stronger team to participate in the tournament to ensure that the seriousness and importance of this tournament, after all, this is the highest level of the East Asian Football Confederation of tournaments.
In the same way that the AFC previously urged Chinese teams to send their strongest lineups to play in the AFC Champions League, Japan, as the tournament's organizer, naturally doesn't want to see the elite tournament turn into a stage for youths.
On balance, the FA eventually offered the solution of sending a national selection team to the tournament, a plan that is similar to the 2019 East Asian Cup.
At that time, Lippi suddenly resigned, the national team has not had time to select the coach, the Football Association finally let the national second team head coach Li Tie as head coach, formed a national selection team to go to the East Asian Cup in South Korea, at that time, Li Tie selected in addition to the national team's main class of domestic competitive players.
The head coach of this national selection team is Jankovic, the head coach of the U23 national team. The team will still be based on 1999 age group players, but the added overage players will be much more than the three previously expected.
The national team competition will have an impact on the ongoing league games.
Japan and South Korea's quasi-main players in action, national soccer team's prospects are in jeopardy
So far, the entire national selection team has still not been announced, and even exactly how many overage players will be taken is still to be decided, which is a conceivable outcome.
On the one hand, the league is underway and perhaps there is an injury situation; on the other hand, players involved in the East Asian Cup will have to miss at least about six weeks of the league, counting matches and quarantine, not counting the time needed to regain their form, which will have a big impact on clubs playing in the Super League and raise certain fairness issues once it comes to relegation or the title race.
Therefore, the Football Association is bound to negotiate with the clubs where the players are drafted, and the final list of participants in the East Asian Cup is destined to be a product of compromise and gaming between all parties.
For example, now the call of the overage player Zhang Yuning, from the league's first five rounds of matches, Zhang Yuning a person's immediate power accounted for more than 50% of the whole team of Guoan, once Zhang Yuning returned to the team, Guoan strength will show a subversive decline.
And although Shenhua doesn't have such an important individual player, as a large number of national players in this age group, once a group of five or so players are selected, it will obviously have a big impact on the strength of the team as well.
In response, Shenhua head coach Wu Jingui said, "There is no official notification yet, we have also heard some news, we will definitely fully support the national team's games and cooperate with them, as long as they look at our players, we will definitely transport them positively, which is also the honor of our team. Personnel appear even greater difficulties, we will also go to think of ways to overcome."
China's lineup is undecided, while Japan and South Korea's basic mainstay will send a fairly accomplished lineup to play, Japan's head coach Mori Baoichi has already said that he will send the second team to play in the East Asian Cup, which is an examination of Japan's World Cup participation in the side lineup, and I believe that all the players will have a great deal of motivation.
The South Korean team also took it very seriously, and the Korean Football Association, the Football Federation and the national team have been in urgent discussions after the conclusion of the previous friendly against Egypt. Manager Paulo Bento insisted on leading the national team's main lineup to participate in the East Asian Cup, so the Korean Football League finally made concessions and modified the K1 League schedule for this purpose.
The outcome of the difficult Chinese national selection team against the prospective starting lineups of Japan and South Korea doesn't seem too difficult to foresee anymore.
