In the late afternoon of April 14th, Tianjin Jinmen Tigers Football Club released two heavyweight news in a row through its renamed social media platform @天津津门虎FC: the list of players for the 2021 season of the Chinese Super League Jinmen Tigers, as well as the team's newly-designed logo. The club's statement "For those who are concerned about and support Jinmen Tigers, we have been waiting for a long time! New season, new journey, Jinmen Tigers start again! It was a refreshing change.
In the official list of players announced by Jinmen Tigers, the position of head coach is held by Yu Genwei. In fact, this news was announced as early as March 31st. Yu Genwei also has another role in the Jinmen Tigers soccer club - general manager. In addition to Yu Genwei, the coaching team of Jinmen Tigers also includes two well-known Tianjin soccer players - Wang Jun and Sun Jianjun, with the former serving as the assistant coach and team leader, and the latter as the assistant coach. It is worth mentioning that the two veterans of the Jinmen Tigers, Bai Yuefeng and Tan Wangsong, will serve as players and assistant coaches, and the club obviously hopes that they can play a role in the team to "pass on".
Several other coaches in the coaching team, although the name is relatively unfamiliar, but are senior excellent coach: assistant coach Zhang Chaosong had played in the player era in Tianjin Songjiang team, retired from the transition to become a coach, between 2015 and 2020 has been the Hebei Huaxia Happiness team as an assistant coach, assisted a number of world-class coaches, including Coleman, Pellegrini, etc.; Assistant Coach Zhang Li had a brief coaching in the Sichuan Youth Women's Football, and led the Sichuan Men's Football U18 All-Tournament Team to advance to the final round of the Tianjin All-Tournament Men's U18 Football U18 Final Round, and after the Chinese U18 National Youth Football Team's head coach Gong Falong stepped down in 2019, Zhang Li also served as the head coach of the U18 national youth football team, and then served as an assistant coach in the Chinese First Division's North Physical Education University team; Goalie Coach Wang Liao once played for Shenyang Jinde, Guangzhou R&F and other teams, and has been working for all levels of R&F Club since his retirement. 2020 was also drawn by the CFA into the Chinese Super League skills research team.
Compared with the coaching team, there are a lot of new faces in the Jinmen Tigers' 30-player lineup, including Fang Jingqi, Barton, Li Songyi, Chen Corey, Cong Zhen and other local players; Nie Tao, Zhou Tong, Zhou Qiming and Li Xiaoxiang have returned; in addition, the Jinmen Tigers also have two foreign aiders, respectively, for the center back Kadar and striker Iroquois. Jinmen Tiger official announced the team list, "German transfer market website" China administrator Zhu Yi also announced the new season Jinmen Tiger team players jersey number. From this news which is not officially confirmed by the Jinmen Tigers club, the jerseys symbolizing the main players, No. 1, No. 4, No. 9 and No. 10, are all vacant.
Interestingly, in the official announcement of the Jinmen Tigers, the 30 players were set into three positions: goalie, forward and defender, and there was no striker. In this regard, fans jokingly said, "With Yu Genwei, there is no need to set up strikers!" However, although the official lineup announced by the Jinmen Tigers was teased by fans as a "strikerless lineup", there are actually many attacking players in the front guards, and Iroquois, a winger who has played for Nantes in the French Ligue 1, has a very strong impact power.
Born in France in 1992, Iroquois, a descendant of the Democratic Republic of Congo, was offered a call-up to the DRC national team in 2015, but politely declined as he had his heart set on playing for France. In fact, Iroquois had a great start to his career, having lived as a child in Jules, a small city of 25,000 people located about 20 kilometers south of Paris, with a strong soccer atmosphere and a long history of soccer. Iroquois came from the youth training of Les Ulises FC, an amateur club that is currently only in the fifth tier of the French league, but from this small club have come out of the world-class stars such as Henry, Evra, Martial and so on, and Iroquois, who has been practicing here since he was a child, also has a dream of being a star.
By the age of 14, Iroquois was getting more and more attention, and after being offered by many professional clubs, he finally chose Nantes, which was closer to his home, to become a member of the Nantes youth academy. In those days, Iroquois' mother and brother would take the train to Nantes every two or three weeks to visit him, as Iroquois was very close to his mother and brother, and after being promoted to the Nantes B team in 2012, Iroquois began to make a name for himself and was promoted to the Nantes first team in the 2014/15 season. After a disappointing debut season, Iroquois started to play in the starting lineup from 2015/16 onwards, making over 20 appearances in three consecutive seasons. Although his scoring efficiency was mediocre, scoring just two goals in his years with Nantes, the winger, who stands at just 6'2" tall, has good speed and explosiveness, and has the talent to change the game individually, giving the team nine Assists. At his best, he was valued at 1.25 million euros.
After leaving Nantes, Iroquois went to play in the Romanian league, and last season he moved to China, where he did not perform well in the Chinese League One with Sichuan Jiuniu and Suzhou Dongwu. However, Iroquois has shown a good ability to break through from the side and make crosses, and has a strong ability to play on his own. For the Jinmen Tigers, who will focus on defensive counter-attack tactics in the new season, his playing characteristics and style of play are more in line with the team's needs.
With Iroquois passing the ball from the side, someone in the center will need to put the ball in the back of the net. In the position of center forward, Xie Weijun, a youngster who once played as a substitute for Wagner, has been improving fast under the promotion of Strikers in the past two years. However, the main center forward position in the new season of the Jinmen Tigers, the probability will be occupied by the new aid Barton, who joined the team on loan from Guoan. Despite the fact that Barton, who was born in 1995, is from Yantai, Shandong Province, he is an excellent product of Beijing Guoan's youth training, and has been selected for the national junior team and the national youth team for many times.From the middle of the 2015 season to the end of the 2016 season, Barton was loaned out by Guoan to Meizhou Hakka, and during this period he made his career debut and scored his first goal, accumulating quite a lot of experience in the game.
In the 2017 season, Barton returned to Guoan, and by virtue of his own efforts, in the second half of the league became the then head coach of the team Schmidt in the U23 players preferred, and even the so-called "95 National Youth Twins" Tang Shi and Wei Shihao squeezed to the bench. That season, Barton played 17 league games scored 1 goal and assisted 3 times, the performance is quite good. Given his excellent performance in the league, Barton also received a call-up to the national Olympic team. However, as Barton lost his status as a U23 player, as well as Guoan successively introduced Prince Ming, Zhang Yuning and other strong local young strikers performed strongly, Barton gradually fell behind in the competition for the position, last season he only made 8 appearances in various tournaments (3 Super League and 5 AFC Champions League), and only in the AFC Champions League has nothing to do with the big picture of the end of the group game with the game in Chiang Rai United debut 1, which is a good indication that he is in the The position of Guoan in the team has been well illustrated.
Of course, the 26-year-old Barton is still a very powerful forward, on the field he is calm, sharp, can score himself and create opportunities for teammates, and more importantly, on the field he is always full of energy. For the Jinmen Tigers, Barton is a ready-to-play player, and for Barton, the Jinmen Tigers can also provide him with enough playing time.
Besides, Su Yuanjie, who is the same age as Barton, is also a capable attacker who can play on and off the side, and initially both Cannavaro and Sousa were very optimistic about his attacking talent and were willing to give him a chance. Since joining the Jinmen Tigers, Su Yuanjie is mostly used as a wingback, perhaps in the moment of need, Su Yuanjie can also be kicked back to his old profession.
In addition to the team list, Jinmen Tigers also announced the team's new logo. The new logo echoes the Jinmen Tigers' team name, with the shield as a complete summary of the main body, symbolizing indestructibility, and the Jinmen Tiger as the main image, with the tiger's head bent upwards, majestic and vivid, and the shield background lined with the word "Jin", representing the regional characteristics. According to the new season of the Chinese Super League journey, on April 22, 8:00 pm, Tianjin Jinmen Tigers first round will play against the favorite Shanghai Harbor, when the reloaded Jinmen Tigers will make a new appearance.
