Following Kawasaki Frontale's defeat to Dabei in the J-League, Beijing Guoan, a new force playing with a youthful squad, fell to K-League powerhouse Daegu FC in the third round of the tournament, 0:5. After three games, Guoan had one draw and two defeats, scoring just one goal and conceding a whopping 13 goals.
Only 11 minutes into the match, Guoan's youngster Gao Jian had a header on the opposing team's goal, but unfortunately the ball hit the post; in the 85th minute, Li Boshi tripped over a defender in the penalty area, but his shot was deflected by Daegu's goalkeeper. These two attacks were the most dangerous shots of the match for Guoan, but they were not converted into goals. Although the young players of Guoan tried their best, they still couldn't resist the opponent's onslaught, and they couldn't organize their own effective counter-attacks, so this game was more like a process of completing a task, and it was difficult to play the effect of training.
Looking back at last year's AFC Championship, the Korean and Japanese teams also had no shortage of young players. The Japanese team had over 33% of players between the ages of 21 and 23, and 13% of players under the age of 20. South Korean teams also have many young players. Against Japanese teams, Chinese Super League teams have 3 wins and 3 losses, scoring and conceding 7 goals; against South Korean teams, they have 3 wins, 2 draws and 3 losses, scoring 10 goals and conceding 13 goals. The competitiveness of the Chinese Super League team in the AFC Champions League shows a downward trend, one of the main reasons is that the Chinese Super League young players in the team failed to become a pillar, 23, 4 years old is still regarded as "newcomers" or "young generals".
As early as more than a decade ago, the former senior official of the National Football Association Lang Xiunong had predicted to this reporter: "10 years later, we are sitting here talking about is still the problem of youth training." Today, Lang's prediction seems to be coming true.
