In the Beijing time zone on January 11, the Chinese men's national soccer team ushered in a new round of assembly, a total of five naturalized players were included in the list, whether they can successfully return to the team, has become the focus of attention. Head coach Li Xiaopeng said bluntly in an interview that there are doubts about the call-up of naturalized players, "The lack of written documents to support the 'call-up' makes it appear that the bottom line is not good enough."
The five naturalized players selected for this edition of the national team include Alan, Jiang Guangtai, Ekson, Luo Guofu and Fernando. Among them, except Fernando, the other four had participated in the previous six group matches of the 12-team tournament. After returning home, Jiang Guangtai continued his league campaign for Guangzhou, Alan flew directly from Dubai to Brazil, and Aickerson and Luo Guofu also flew from Guangzhou to Brazil after terminating their contracts with Guangzhou. Fernando did not participate in the 40-team and 12-team group matches due to injury and returned to Brazil early to heal. Whether they will be able to accept the national team's call-up has become the focus of media attention. It seems that Jiang Guangtai will have little problem participating in the next two group matches, while the remaining four naturalized players who returned to Brazil seem to have a lot of difficulties in returning to the national team.
According to the CFA's notice, "Overseas athletes are required to arrive at the place of participation on January 23, 2022 to complete check-in."
Faced with the challenge of drafting naturalized players, Li Xiaopeng didn't hold back. "Their strength is obvious to all, are high-level naturalized players. Now the problem is that the coach in the selection of players, my principle is to call, come to fight, fight to win. In these three areas, call-ups are a real problem. There is a lack of 100% written documentation at this point, and if there was, maybe we could be more assertive. However, they have personally stated that they are willing to fight for their country and that is not a problem."
Four naturalized players returned to Brazil, are currently in a state of vacation, did not sign with the local clubs, the state of the players are worried. In this regard, Li Xiaopeng said: "Status is indeed a problem, individual training and training with the team is completely different. But even so, I hope they can travel to Japan, we observe it from a close distance. Now, I will not miss any person or opportunity that can provide help to the team."
