On June 1, an explosive news came to the Chinese soccer world to usher in a new trend. According to Beijing Youth Daily, the latest edition of the national team's roster was freshly released. Ackerson and Jiang Guangtai are on the list, while Alan and Luo Guofu seem to be hard to find on the stage of the Asian Cup. This is encouraging news for Ackerson and Jiang Guangtai.
Earlier reports indicated that the national soccer team will have two friendly matches against Myanmar and Palestine in June. In order to prepare for these two matches, Jankovic and Shao Jia have been carefully selecting their team from several Chinese Super League matches in an attempt to build a strong national soccer team. They hope to identify the core of the team through these two warm-up matches, which in turn will influence the Asian Cup and World Cup qualifiers. As a result, Jankovic will focus on players who have excelled in the league.
However, there is no greater focus than how Jankovic will select his naturalized players and whether he will put them to good use. After all, the departure of former national soccer coach Li Tie is inextricably linked to his practice of not favoring naturalized players. Beijing Youth Daily commented on this: "Jiang Guangtai and Eckerson deserve to be selected after playing for Hong Kong and Rongcheng in the league respectively. Fernando and Li Ke have had few chances to play for their respective teams, and Jankovic may drop them."
It is reported that due to the tight preparation time, Luo Guofu and Alan are playing far away from the Brazilian league and still have a long way to go before returning home. As a result, they have not been included in the latest roster. This means that Luo Guofu and Alan will not be included in the next nine lists, training and warm-up matches of the national soccer team in October, which also signals that their hopes of participating in the next Asian Cup are dashed.
From the report of Beijing Youth Daily, Yankovic's decision seems to be a wise one. He has included Ackerson and Jiang Guangtai in the national soccer team roster, while Luo Guofu and Alan are not only out of the latest roster, but may even miss the next Asian Cup. Although the media did not disclose the exact reason, Alan and Luo Guofu's long absence from the national soccer team is undoubtedly a major blow to the naturalized players and has sparked a heated debate among fans.
Some fans said, "It's very unfortunate for Alan, who is not bad but rarely plays. Ackerson and Jiang Guangtai continue to perform well, Fernando and Li were really left out. Although Luo Guofu is doing well in Barclays Premier League, there is no need to go far away, they should be recruited in the Asian Cup."
Of course, there are also fans who put forward a different point of view: "Naturalized players are only a stopgap measure and cannot be relied on in the long term. If Li Tie fully used naturalized players at that time, perhaps a disaster can be avoided. This batch of naturalized players is really a pity, after the Chinese Super League, the number of naturalized players plummeted!"
