In the late afternoon of January 19th, the Chinese men's national football team continued to train according to the original plan at Century Park in the tense atmosphere of Shanghai's preparations for the World Preliminary 12 tournament. However, compared with the previous day's training volume, today's training intensity is significantly reduced. This is because the team will have a key internal match the following day. The match will follow a similar pattern to the first warm-up match three days ago, but will be extended from 50 to 90 minutes.
Since January 16th, the national team was divided into "Li Jin Yu team" and "Chen Yang team" for a 50-minute internal confrontation, the next morning for recovery training, and in the afternoon to arrange for players to rest. 18th, the team continued to practice one day. This training session was the largest training session for the national team since the concentration, although the personnel grouping remained unchanged, but the training subjects and contents gradually converged, because with the time of the war with Japan getting closer and closer, all the players need to unify the technical and tactical guidelines. Therefore, after the preparation activities, both groups arranged 4 to 4 group passing against the practice, as well as the whole team 9 to 9 offense and defense drills, both groups of training volume is quite large.
On the 19th, the national team still trained in the late afternoon and continued to be divided into two groups. However, compared with the previous day, the training volume was significantly reduced. On the one hand, it is a normal adjustment arrangement, on the other hand, it is also warming up for the second internal confrontation on the afternoon of the 20th. Li Xiaopeng and his coaching team have made it clear that the second internal teaching match on the 20th will be conducted in accordance with the 90-minute official game time, when the training volume will not be small.
The main purpose of choosing to play this internal match tomorrow afternoon is to stimulate the players' form, as in a week's time, on January 27th, the Chinese team will face Japan on the road. A week of extensive training in advance will help the players adapt to the game. As the grouping of personnel basically unchanged, so there is no distinction between starters and substitutes, and there is no simulation of the Japanese team's style of play and other arrangements, to stimulate and adjust the state of the players is the key.
After the "second match", head coach Li Xiaopeng will start to identify the players who will go to Japan based on the two internal confrontation matches. From the 44 players currently in Shanghai, about 22 to 23 players will be selected, together with Wu Lei, Li Lei and Jiang Guangtai in the United Arab Emirates, to make up the final national team, and enter the final stage of technical and tactical integration. In addition, the coaching staff will also select a few substitutes in case of injuries and other unforeseen circumstances in the upcoming training, and these substitutes will have a chance to enter the official list.
Despite what kind of adjustment the national football team will make next, but from the performance of the players who participated in the Shanghai training, all aspects are quite excellent, they are trying to win the favor of the coaching staff, in order to enter the final list. This is exactly what the coaching team headed by Li Xiaopeng is most satisfied with. In the current special circumstances, the organization of such a large-scale training, the coaching staff under great pressure, but at least from the training effect, the results are remarkable, effectively enhance the competitive atmosphere within the team. As for the four Brazilian naturalized players, the national football team is still waiting for further news, and keep in touch with them.
In addition, on the issue of Zheng Zhi, it can be clear that although Zheng Zhi's name still exists in the list of national team members reported by the Chinese men's soccer team to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), this time Zheng Zhi will accompany the team to the east in the capacity of an assistant coach and will not play as a player. This is also a way for Zheng Zhi to accumulate more coaching experience after his transition.
