In the moment of January 7, China's national soccer team's new round of training list was unveiled, which marks the debut of Li Xiaopeng, the coach of the national football team after taking charge of the whip. In the list, many players and youthfulness become two significant features. The lineup includes 52 players and 41 staff members, making Li Xiaopeng's team the largest national team in the history of the national soccer team. On the 16th and 20th, the national football team will have two warm-up matches, followed by a streamlining process, and it is expected that the players who will eventually travel to Japan and Vietnam for the World Qualification Tournament will be between 25 and 30.
The national football team advocates "big national team" training mode
Following the resignation of Li Tie, the State General Administration of Sports plans to lead the CFA, the establishment of men's football working group, the General Administration of the leadership as the head, Chen Xuyuan as deputy head, co-ordination of resources, focusing on the strengths of the men's football national team to promote the management of the work together. The current national team training list clearly reflects the characteristics of the "big national team", which has also been applied to some sports teams during the preparation for the Winter Olympics.
The advantage of the large national team model is that the head coach is able to understand the characteristics of each athlete in depth, and at the same time, it is conducive to healthy competition within the team and the selection of the best among the best. However, soccer has its uniqueness, the number of first team daily training needs to be strictly controlled, more than 30 people will be difficult to carry out normal technical and tactical training. The national football training lineup is huge, Li Xiaopeng how to mobilize daily training has become a major focus.
The training list of 52 players is 19 more than the number of players in the previous national football team's westward journey to Sharjah, which shows the "draft" nature of this training session. Such a huge lineup, I am afraid it is difficult to carry out technical and tactical training, the official technical and tactical training needs to be streamlined after the start.
It's worth noting that the leadership team has equipped Li Xiaopeng with a huge team of assistants, including almost all of the league's top tier of young coaches and managers. There are also long-term partners like Jose Pep. The team of assistant coaches consists of 15 people, including a number of veterans who have played for the national team for many years, such as Zheng Zhi, Shao Jiayi, Sun Jihai and others. It is not yet known how such a powerful think tank will serve the national team. It is reported that some of them have not even received the notice to go to the national team.
Looking at this list, many of them may just be coming to the national team for short-term cameos. For example, Chen Yang, Yu Genwei, Zheng Zhi, and Li Jinyu are now head coaches of the Chinese Super League's first-team teams, and Li Leilei and Wang Liang are serving as assistant coaches, making it difficult for them to juggle two jobs. Sun Xiang also serves as deputy general manager of the Harbour team and is currently with the team in Chengdu preparing for the AFC Cup final.
In terms of physical coaches, Hu Yu has been a longtime partner of Li Xiaopeng but is still coaching at Wuhan, while Owen Wilk is an assistant coach at Shenhua and was allegedly introduced to Li Xiaopeng by Fabio. Unsurprisingly, the coaching team will also undergo a streamlining before the national soccer team officially leaves for Japan.
The average age of the national soccer team has dropped
The national team during Li Tie's time has always been the oldest national team in Asia in terms of average age, with the average age of the players participating in the Top 12 tournament being over 30 years old. Li Xiaopeng has recruited a number of young players for this training session, bringing down the average age of the national team. The youngest player in this current national team is Jiang Shenglong, a center back born in December 2000, while other young players such as Han Jiaqi, Dai Weijun, Liu Ruowan and Wu Shaochong have also been called up due to their outstanding performances in the league.
Among the national team players during Li Tie's time, Barton, Gao Junyi, Wang Qiuming and Dong Chunyu failed to make the current national team. Among them, Barton and Gao Junyi are taking a break due to injuries, and Dong Chunyu has been replaced by teammate Wang Zhifeng in the national team after losing his starting position in Wuhan.
Shenzhen's midfielder Dai Weijun was selected for the first time for the national team list, is still under the Hong Kong Football Association of China, the naturalization work has not yet been completed, but it does not affect his participation in the national football training. Sources say that Dai Weijun's naturalization work is close to completion, and soon he will be able to play on behalf of the national team.
All five naturalized players who took part in the 12-team tournament have been selected for the current national football training, and according to the training notice, the overseas athletes will arrive at the place where the team will compete on January 23rd. At present, the most promising naturalized players representing the national football team are only Jiang Guangtai, a center back, Luo Guofu, Aixen, Alan and Fernando have returned to Brazil, whether they can go to Japan to meet with the team, it is still not clear. Even if they can arrive in Japan, without systematic training for a long time, I'm afraid it will be difficult to find the match condition.
