After last year's World Preliminary 12 fierce battle, the national football team rekindled the fire, however, the football association has been preparing for a long time naturalization strategy seems to have met its Waterloo.
Even with the addition of naturalized players such as Ackerson, Lo Kok Fu and Alan, the national football team's performance has remained disappointing. Not only is the dream of the World Cup out of reach, but even the former Asian underdogs, Vietnam, have failed to beat them.
As the preliminaries come to an end, naturalized players are no longer the focus of public opinion. At the end of last year, the "Li Tie incident" and the successive fall of the top management of the Football Association turned the attention of fans elsewhere, and the topic of naturalization gradually faded away.
Recently, however, naturalized players have once again sparked heated debate. It is reported that the Football Association and many Chinese Super League clubs are conspiring to bring in at least five naturalized players. Unlike 2019, this time the naturalization is targeting young players of Chinese origin, such as Ekson, Luo Guofu and Alan.
With the demise of Guangzhou Evergrande, the position of naturalization enforcer of the Football Association has been taken over by Shanghai Shenhua. Shenhua is in talks with American-born Chinese player Yan Xinli, aiming to help him complete his naturalization with Finnish Premier League side Sejnejoki Academy.
Yann Xinli, 28, a third-generation Chinese American who played for the Blue Devils at Duke University, landed in the Euroleague in 2017, joining Istria in Croatia before moving to the Slovenian and Slovak leagues and moving to IFK Helsinki in 2019, where he is playing for Finnish Premier League side Sejnaijoki Academy this season.
Yann Xinli plays as a right back, but can also play as a right winger and center back. He is fast, breaks through, strong and fierce in defense, and contributed one goal and two assists in 21 Finnish Premier League matches for IFK Helsinki last season.
Shenhua's communication with Yann Xinli has gone well and the introduction of the Chinese-born player is expected. This is not unrelated to the departure of naturalized Chinese defender Wang Yi on a free.
The FA also plans to naturalize four other Chinese players, and several Chinese Super League clubs have already assisted in the process. These four players are not bad, young and have experience in the European league, tactical concepts and skills higher than domestic players.
The experiences of the five players are similar to those of naturalized players such as Jiang Guangtai, Xiao Tao Tao, Li Ke and Hou Yong Yong. Currently, Jiang Guangtai is expected to be the mainstay of the national team, while the other three players either cannot get a foothold in the national soccer team or are not related to the national team.
When restarting the naturalization program, the FA should be more careful to avoid paying a lot of placement fees without being able to utilize the players. Perhaps the naturalized players could play in European leagues instead of the Chinese Super League to stay in top form...
