June 23, FIFA announced a new men's football national team rankings, China's men's football unfortunately fell out of the top ten in Asia, only ranked 78th in the international, Asia's 11th. this ranking in China's men's football in the last four years, the worst record.
National team building has come to a standstill since the end of the twelve-team tournament at the end of March. With less than four weeks to go before the East Asian Cup, there is still a mystery about the selection of the teams ......
At the moment, the national team is not even clear on a head coach, let alone moving forward with anything else. The image in this article is from ic.
Li Xiaopeng, the head coach of the national football team, has disappeared for a long time
FIFA's official website shows that the 78th place ranking is the worst international ranking of the national football team in the past four years. In these four years, the international ranking of the national football team has reached as high as 65th and as low as 78th.
In the international rankings at the end of 2021, the national football team was ranked 74th internationally and 8th in Asia.Entering 2022, FIFA released three international rankings in February, March and June, and the national football team's rankings fell consecutively.
Due to the poor results in the Top 12 and the failure to organize international matches in accordance with FIFA regulations at the beginning of June, the decline in the national football team's ranking was expected. What is even more worrying is that the construction of the national team has suddenly come to a standstill due to subjective and objective factors after the end of the 12th round of the tournament.
On the one hand, considering that it is not suitable for international matches at the moment, as well as the need to make time for the Chinese Super League, the national football team did not organize matches on international match days in June and September this year. On the other hand, the management of the national team is currently not in the hands of the CFA, which has led to no clear statement so far on key issues such as the retention of the head coach.
According to Sports Weekly, in November last year, the national football team and the Australian team in the twelve strong "home" game after the end of the management of the national team is no longer in the hands of the CFA, but by the General Administration of Sport of the State General Administration of a "leading group" set up to take over the full, the relevant leaders personally as the head of the group. The relevant leaders personally served as the head of the group. The head coach, Li Xiaopeng, was not hired by the CFA, but was chosen directly by a higher authority.
In this case, Li Xiaopeng, who is currently the head coach of the national team, the question of his retention is not decided by the CFA level, but by a higher level of authority. But now, a higher level of authority has no intention of intervening in the national football team as well as the head coach Li Xiaopeng's problems, which puts Li Xiaopeng himself in an extremely awkward situation.
A noteworthy detail is that in the past, during the process of the Chinese Super League, the national team head coach will personally visit the scene to examine the players, but this year, the Chinese Super League has begun five rounds, the national team head coach Li Xiaopeng disappeared from public view ......
The National Football League has come to a standstill since the end of the 12th round.
Several twists and turns in the East Asian Cup team plan
At the end of March, after the end of the twelfth round of the tournament, the national football team returned to the country, the CFA decided to replace the national football team by the U23 men's football team to participate in the East Asian Cup according to the situation and circumstances at that time.
The considerations at the time were that the Hangzhou Asian Games were about to begin and the U23 men needed more real-world opportunities, and in preparation for the Asian Games, the CFA also planned to have three overage players, Zhang Linpeng, Wu Xi and Zhang Yuning, participate in the East Asian Cup and the Asian Games along with the U23 men.
Now with the change of venue for the East Asian Cup, the postponement of the Hangzhou Asian Games, and the change of venue for the 2023 Asian Cup, a series of objective circumstances have fundamentally changed, forcing the CFA to make adjustments anew in the construction of the national force.
The first is the issue of calling up overage players. Since there are no Asian Games matches this year, the question of whether these three specific overage players are still needed needs to be revisited; after all, the attribution of the overage quota for the Asian Games in a year's time will surely change to some extent.
Secondly, it is the form of the entire force, Japan to replace our country to become the host country of the current East Asian Cup, the Japanese Football Association has previously expressed the hope that the Chinese Football Association can send a stronger team to participate in the tournament to ensure that the seriousness and importance of this tournament, after all, this is the highest level of the East Asian Football Confederation of the tournament.
Like the AFC previously urging Chinese teams to field their strongest lineups to play in the AFC Champions League, Japan, as the tournament's organizer, naturally doesn't want to see the elite tournament turn into a stage for youths.
On balance, the CFA eventually gave the solution of sending a national selection team to the tournament, a plan that is similar to the 2019 East Asian Cup.
At that time, Lippi suddenly resigned, the national team has not had time to select the coach, and finally the CFA let the national second team manager Li Tie as the head coach, formed a national selection team to go to the East Asian Cup in South Korea, at that time, Li Tie chose in addition to the national team's main class of domestic competitive players.
The head coach of this national selection team is Jankovic, the head coach of the U23 national team. The team will still be based on the 1999 age group players, but the added overage players will be much more than the three previously expected.
The national team games will have an impact on the ongoing Chinese Super League.
Japan and South Korea's quasi-main players in action, national soccer team's prospects are in jeopardy
So far, the entire national selection team has still not been announced, and even exactly how many overage players will be taken is still to be decided, which is a conceivable outcome.
On the one hand, the league is in progress, perhaps there is an injury situation; on the other hand, the players who participate in the East Asian Cup, counting the game and isolation, at least to miss the league for about 6 weeks, which is not counting the time needed to return to form, which will give the club to play the Super League has a great impact, once involved in relegation or the title race, but also to trigger a certain degree of fairness.
Therefore, the CFA is bound to negotiate with the clubs where the players are drafted, and the final list of participants in the East Asian Cup is destined to be the product of a compromise and game between all parties.
For example, now the call of the overage player Zhang Yuning, from the league's first five rounds of matches, Zhang Yuning a person's immediate power accounted for more than 50% of the entire team of Guoan, once Zhang Yuning returned to the team, the strength of the national security will show a subversive decline.
And although Shenhua doesn't have such an important individual player, as a large number of national players in this age group, once a group of five or so players are selected, it will obviously have a big impact on the strength of the team as well.
To this Shenhua head coach Wu Jingui said: "At present there is no official notice, we have also heard some news, we will certainly fully support the national team's games, cooperate with their work, as long as they look at our players, we will certainly be actively transported, which is also the honor of our salon. Personnel appear even greater difficulties, we will also go to find ways to overcome."
China's formation is undecided, while Japan and South Korea's basic mainstay will send quite a powerful lineup to play, Japan's head coach Mori Baoichi has said that he will send the second team to play in the East Asian Cup, which is a Japanese team to the World Cup to participate in the marginal formation of an examination, I believe that all the players will have a great deal of motivation.
The South Korean team also attached great importance to the competition, and the KFA, the soccer federation and the national team have been in urgent discussions after the conclusion of the previous friendly match against Egypt. Manager Paulo Bento insisted on leading the national team's main lineup to the East Asian Cup, so the KFA finally made concessions and modified the K1 League schedule for this purpose.
The outcome of the difficult Chinese national selection team against the Japanese and South Korean prospective starting lineups doesn't seem too hard to predict anymore.
