Tonight's much-anticipated FA Cup clash between Beijing Guoan and Shandong Taishan is undoubtedly the center of attention. Both teams are veterans of Chinese soccer and have never been relegated. In the current league, Shandong Taishan is in second place and Beijing Guoan is in fourth place, with only three points separating them.
Although the AFC Cup is not a top priority for most teams, these two teams see it as the key to qualifying for the AFC Champions League. The winner of the AFC Cup will advance directly to the AFC Champions League, so this matchup between the capital and Qilu is destined to be an exciting and intense one.
This top-level matchup also caught the eye of current national team head coach Jankovic. The reason for his personal presence was that both teams have a large number of international players. Shandong Taishan had Chen Pu, Sun Guowen and Wang Dalei, while Beijing Guoan had Li Ke, Li Lei and Wang Ziming. He wanted to use this opportunity to take another look at the performance of these international players.
In the match, Taishan's Chen Pu had an eye-catching performance, scoring a goal in only 10 minutes after the start. The best performer in the game was not the international players, but Zhang Xizhe, who used to be the No. 10 of the national team and is now slightly disillusioned. He showed great form in the game.
In the 19th minute, Guoan launched a counterattack, Zhang Xizhe sent a precise long pass, breaking through the Taishan defense. Kang Xiangyou shot a padded shot through the goal guarded by Wang Dalei, and Guoan equalized the score 1-1. This goal fully demonstrated Zhang Xizhe's precision in passing vision and footwork, which is exactly the ability of the core of the midfield.
It's worth noting that Zhang Xizhe was not a one-hit wonder in this match. In his previous three matches in the midfield, Zhang Xizhe has had two assists, a goal and an oval, contributing to a total of four goals in the three matches, with the previous goals being key goals. The goal in this AFC Cup was the key to a draw. Although Beijing Guoan lost to Shandong Taishan on penalties, Zhang Xizhe's performance certainly deserves recognition.
So, did Jankovic, who was watching the game from the stands, regret not including Zhang Xizhe's name in the list? Then again, Zhang Heizhe did go through a period of slump before. At the tail end of the Golden Era, he had to take on more responsibility for organizing the attack, as he was originally responsible for the midfield tandem. Despite his ability to do so, it's been too long since he's familiarized himself with that role after all. At both club and country, he looked a bit out of his depth and failed to live up to the expectations of a central midfielder.
However, after nearly two seasons of training, Zhang Xizhe has found himself and the confidence of one of the four swans of the national soccer team. Now that Zhang Xizhe has become stronger, can he still be the No. 10 of the national soccer team? Will he still be able to play for the national team? At least for now, no one can do better than him.
