At the Jingyue base of Changchun Yatai Football Salon, the Chinese men's U18 National Youth Football Team is training intensively. Just yesterday, they had an open practical drill. Captain Anthony revealed in an interview that the team is currently in a critical period and needs to stay focused in high-intensity training to lay a solid foundation for the U20 Asian Cup in two years.
Yesterday's training took place in torrential rain. The team carried out technical and tactical drills and group confrontation respectively. Leader Shao Jiayi introduced that since the training on the 13th, the team has been insisting on more than three hours of training sessions every day, and at the same time, it also played two warm-up matches with Changchun Yatai U21 team and Yanbian Longding team of the Central B. The intention is to test the results of the training with the matches.
"No matter what the weather is like, the players will have to do their best to fulfill their training tasks. The next preparation will be more focused." Shaw emphasized.
As a result of the epidemic, the AFC U16 Championship (the final stage of the Asian Junior Championship), which was scheduled to be held in 2021, had to be canceled, and the National Junior Team, which was based on the 2003 and 2004 age groups, was then shifted to the preparation for the U20 Asian Cup Qualifiers. Under Anthony's leadership, the National Junior Team finished first in their group with 3 wins and 1 draw to qualify for the final round of the AFC Asian Junior Championship.
"It is very unfortunate that the Asian Junior Championship was canceled." Anthony said, "But now we can't dwell on the past, the next Asian Cup is a bigger challenge for the team and the national team."
In Anthony's view, the team's priority at this stage is to stick to high-intensity training and keep honing the lineup. "We have to stay focused, we had success in the Asian Junior Championships before and going forward we have to meet the challenge with all our might in line with the set goals." He said.
A total of 33 people were selected for the national youth team training list. Shao Jiayi said, the team currently has many individual ability and teamwork outstanding players, offensive and defensive lineup also tends to be diversified, the next point after the competition to check the gaps and fill in the gaps, to learn more suitable for the team's playing style.
It is reported that the training will end on the 29th. According to the plan, the U18 national youth team will also play a warm-up match with Changchun Yatai first team.
