On January 7, the new training list of the national soccer team was unveiled, marking the starting point for Li Xiaopeng's coaching of the national team. This list reveals two notable features: first, a large number of players, and second, a clear trend of rejuvenation. The lineup of 52 players and 41 staff members makes Li's team the largest gathering in the history of the national football team. 16 and 20, the national football team will play two warm-up matches, followed by streamlining, and is expected to end up with 25 to 30 people traveling with the team to Japan and Vietnam to participate in the World Qualification Tournament.
National football team to implement the "big national team" training strategy
Li Tie resigned, the State General Administration of Sports intends to dominate the CFA, the formation of men's football operations leading group, led by the General Administration as head, Chen Xuyuan as deputy head, coordination of resources, focus on the advantages of the men's football national team to jointly promote the management. This training list also shows the characteristics of the "big national team", similar to the form taken in the preparation for the Winter Olympics.
The advantage of the "big national team" is that the head coach can have a more comprehensive understanding of the athletes, which is conducive to healthy competition within the team and the selection of the best. But soccer has its own particularity, the number of first-team daily training needs to be strictly controlled in the 30 people below, over the limit will affect the technical and tactical training. Li Xiaopeng how to deal with such a huge training lineup, become a major focus.
The 52-player training list is 19 more than the number of players in the previous national soccer team's trip to Sharjah, showing a certain "draft" nature. Such a huge lineup, technical and tactical training is difficult to start, the official training needs to wait until after the weight loss.
It is worth mentioning that the leading group for the head coach Li Xiaopeng equipped with a huge team of assistant coaches, almost including the first line of the league's young coaches and managers, as well as how the Jose Pep and other foreign coaches who have been working with Li Xiaopeng for a long time. The team of assistant coaches has as many as 15 people, including veterans such as Zheng Zhi, Shao Jiayi and Sun Jihai. How this think tank will serve the national team is still unclear. It is reported that some of them have not even received the national team report notice.
Looking at the list, most of them may just be short-term cameos, such as Chen Yang, Yu Genwei, Zheng Zhi, Li Jinyu and other first-team managers, with Li Leilei and Wang Liang serving as assistant coaches, making it difficult to juggle. Sun Xiang also serves as deputy general manager of the Harbor team, which is preparing for the AFC Cup final in Chengdu.
In terms of physical coaches, Hu Yu is a longtime partner of Li Xiaopeng but is still coaching at Wuhan, and Owen Wilk is an assistant coach at Shenhua and was reportedly recommended to Li Xiaopeng by Fabio. Unsurprisingly, the coaching team will also undergo a streamlining before the national soccer team leaves for Japan.
The average age of the national soccer team has dropped
Li Tie era of the national team has been the largest average age of the team in Asia, the average age of the players participating in the 12 strong tournament is more than 30 years old. This training period, Li Xiaopeng recruited a number of young players, the average age of the national team has decreased. The youngest player is Jiang Shenglong, a center back born in December 2000, and young players such as Han Jiaqi, Dai Weijun, Liu Ruowan, and Wu Shaochong have also been called up for their outstanding performance in the league.
Of the national team players from Li Tie's era, Barton, Gao Junyi, Wang Qiuming and Dong Chunyu failed to make the current national team, with Barton and Gao Junyi resting due to injuries, and Dong Chunyu being replaced by teammate Wang Zhifeng after he lost his starting position in Wuhan.
Shenzhen team midfielder Dai Weijun was selected for the first time in the national team list, is still affiliated with the Hong Kong Football Association of China, the naturalization of the work is not yet completed, but does not prevent the participation of the national football training. Sources said, Dai Weijun's naturalization work is about to be completed, he will soon be able to represent the national team.
All five naturalized players who participated in the 12-team tournament have been selected for the current national football training, and it is reported that the athletes who are overseas will arrive at the place where the team will compete on January 23rd. Currently, the most promising naturalized players to represent the national football team are center back Jiang Guangtai. Luo Guofu, Ekerson, Allan and Fernando have returned to Brazil and it is not clear whether they can travel to Japan to join the team. Even if they can arrive in Japan, the lack of systematic training for a long time may make it difficult for them to find their game form.
