2023 Chinese Football: Women's Soccer Slipping, Men's Soccer Lost, New Management Challenges Heavy Road?

Song Kai emphasized that soccer development must focus on youth training, starting with the children and progressing through the layers to deliver talent. This concept is undoubtedly correct. At the beginning of his tenure, he held meetings with the youth training leaders of Shandong, Shanghai and Evergrande clubs, and was recognized. However, the resistance faced to break the mold should not be underestimated. First of all, the youth training system is full of loopholes, unclear responsibilities at all levels of the organization, insufficient participation of the Football Association, the lack of cooperation between various departments, the lack of reliable guidelines and policies, which can easily lead to the phenomenon of "three unregulated". Secondly, the youth training infrastructure and coaching team is seriously inadequate, and the "love power" model is both ironic and unsustainable. There are many problems and challenges. Moreover, the problem of talent selection mechanism is even more profound, I am afraid that these problems can not be solved by the FA alone. On this basis, Song Kai has also discussed with the Bundesliga officials, the Asian Football Confederation and many other organizations, hoping to introduce the world's advanced model to guide the development of local tournaments and to enhance the actual ability. The new team's thinking is undoubtedly correct, with a deep understanding of many issues. However, the key is whether the "talk" can be "done". For example, how to implement the market reform of the Chinese Super League, how to avoid the introduction of policies to the detriment of clubs, how to implement the FA policy of infrequent changes, how to consult the public opinion of the policy of the neutral name, etc., can not only stay in the slogan level, not very useful. Fans may still be skeptical about President Song's grandiose words in the face of the access policy dilemma. Not long after Chairman Song Kai took office, the national team had an important competition test, as the women's Olympic qualifying group matches kicked off at Xiamen's White Heron Sports Center. With a relatively full squad, this is a great opportunity to qualify for the tournament. Facing old rivals such as South Korea, North Korea and Thailand is also familiar enough, so the time, place and people are basically available. However, the roses did not give the President "face", losing to North Korea and then being drawn by South Korea, the 3-0 victory over Thailand seemed meaningless. It is disappointing that they failed to qualify for the Olympics. President Song not only supervised the game, but also issued a "must get out of the line" before the game. It is important to understand that the value, status and spiritual attributes of women's soccer in China are much more than just soccer and athletic competitions. They were once the pride of the country, the spiritual support of previous generations. However, in the overall poor soccer environment, the fall of women's soccer is inevitable. The rapid fall of the last Asian Cup champions was shocking, and times have really changed. The glory that belonged to women's soccer has become a passing cloud. The friendly defeat by Sweden in February (1-4) was enough to illustrate the problem, but unfortunately, not many people paid attention to it, and it didn't cause much controversy. in April, the gap was obvious when they were forced to a draw by Switzerland and lightly beaten by Spain. Despite the coaching staff's attempts to make amends, it seemed too late, and the outcome of the tournament was finalized. 3-0 by Brazil in July, the women's soccer team arrived at the World Cup stage, a familiar one that has been the scene of so many great successes. The 0-1 loss to Denmark was slightly unfortunate, and the 1-0 win over Haiti was treacherous. If these two games were barely "acceptable", then the 6-1 defeat against England in the final round of the tournament was a complete blowout. After the game, Wang Frost's helplessness, Shen Mengyu's loss, and Yang Lina's tears couldn't break the supporters' hearts. Everyone is still in an unbelievable daze: could it be that the gap between women's soccer and the world's best is already so big? Yes, this is the truth, this is not a coincidence. If the World Cup "can still find an excuse", is "away from home" factors lead to, that September's home competition is estimated to have no "reason". Hangzhou Asian Games should be a good opportunity for women's football "to wash off" the failure, but also an important opportunity for the players to get out of the haze. Unexpectedly, VS Japan's semi-final has become the opponent's second team (or even the third team) to find confidence in the game. Japan has almost completed the "renewal" work, 90 minutes are over, our hosts are only left in the dark. The fact that we, the hosts, were left in a state of despair after 90 minutes, coupled with the fact that we had failed in all three major tournaments of the year, including the Olympic Qualifying Tournament, speaks for itself. After the match, the team's meritorious manager Shui Qingxia left, and the women's soccer team was forced to enter a new era. Although the head coach has not been decided for the time being, the brittle defeat in the U.S. training is still a reminder of the team, our gap is not a change of coaching work can be a good response. All aspects of the gap, the need for three-dimensional systematic solutions to countermeasures to alleviate, do not work hard I am afraid that really will fall deeper. Women's soccer ranked 19th has come to the "history of the worst", can not continue to go down. Encouragement of travel to Europe, training, support for the league, these important work, should also have professionals to handle. However, the dilemma of the "feminization of men's football" has basically become an embarrassing fact, and it is indeed difficult to go back to the past. Of course, compared to the performance of women's soccer, men's soccer is not much better. The new manager Yankovic took office with a lot of "contradictions", "helplessness" and "compromise", and in the first big test with New Zealand, the two matches with one draw and one loss are considered as "failing". The first big test with New Zealand, two draws and one loss is considered to be a "failure", after the game, some people shouted out the slogan that Jankovic must be dismissed (incompetent and incompetent), which is really laughable. After the friendly matches, the national soccer team took down Myanmar and also beat Palestine, which is considered to give Yankovic temporary relief from the crisis. However, 1 draw and 1 loss against Malaysia and Syria were disappointing, and the national football team's uninspired play on offense and defense was really bad; the good thing is that the 2-0 Vietnam and 1-2 Uzbekistan were still playing with some content, which brought some "self-confidence" to the World Qualification Tournament. In November, the start of the second round of the two matches in the second round of the World Qualification Tournament, 2-1 away win over Thailand and 0-3 home defeat to South Korea, basically in the expected, to get three points can be a pass. Taking into account the next World Cup "active expansion", and the Asian region of the 8.5 places and the tournament system restructuring, the national football team's chances are relatively big a lot, take Thailand is basically certain to enter the next round of competition, but also let the green fans to maintain a certain degree of hope for the time being! "The On paper, after Japan, South Korea, Australia, Iran and Saudi Arabia (90% probability), the remaining Syria, Iraq, UAE and Vietnam are the real opponents of the national soccer team. Competing with 8 or 9 teams for the remaining 3 places (the 0.5 play-offs are too difficult to ignore), the national soccer team must do its best to ensure that the margin of error is high enough, and studying the opponents and then coming up with a targeted setup is a very important measure. In other words, it is the fundamental principle that you can lose South Korea by a big score and not lose Syria in any way. After all, in this "dark moment" environment, utilitarian purpose is correct. The requirement of "both to be and to be" is indeed too difficult for the national soccer team at this time. If we can produce good results, such as reaching the final round of the Asian Qualifiers, or even getting lucky enough to qualify for the play-offs, then the support for the national soccer team will definitely pick up immediately. At the end of the day, this is still our own national team! At the end of the day, everyone is eager to see the national soccer team step onto the stage of the World Cup! Therefore, we can continue to observe Jankovic's thinking (be careful, win what you need to win, don't expect to win what you shouldn't win). After all, as President Song Kai said, too much back and forth, policy changes do not help the development of soccer, the last session of the sensational naturalization policy, to the present day, has long been a failure. Let's be patient with Jankovic! Of course, the Asian Cup is just around the corner, which will certainly be a big test for the national football team. The national soccer team, which has been preparing for the tournament a month in advance, has long since arrived in Abu Dhabi. According to reports from reporters following the team, the manager will arrange a lot of technical and tactical training in the hope of instilling all his designs into his players. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, compared to the past training week, two weeks, nearly a month's time is enough to familiarize themselves with each other, "fight for eight four" goal, should also have the opportunity to complete. The lineup is complete, the physical fitness is abundant, the environment is suitable, and there are no more excuses. Li can be dismissed from the team for not following the rules, which shows the strictness of the team, and I hope this can help the national football team to improve their morale. National players can maintain the physical fitness to participate in the Asian Cup, or with the official end of the Chinese Super League has something to do. However, the issue of access to the next season of the Chinese Super League, became the focus of the green fans are paying attention to, this work is indeed much earlier than in the past, see the new leadership of the local tournament attention. Only, attention does not equal success, according to the soccer newspaper and other media statistics, to ensure that can meet the access requirements of the team, after all, only half, the rest more or less have problems. This is also a clear feedback of the reality of the Chinese Super League: no money. The recurring problems of unpaid wages, lack of funds and lack of professionalism have severely demoralized the players, and naturally have become the key to the outside world's attacks on the tournament. This is indeed detrimental to the development of the tournament, not only appeared in a team, count reflects the systematic nature of the problem. Whether it is the champion division, or small and medium-sized teams are struggling to find sponsors, which is extremely rare in the world. In this regard, is not to restore the "lifesaving straw" neutral name reform policy, has become a key point of discussion. In this regard, although the Football Association has not given a relatively clear answer, however, the introduction of the draft can still be seen in the consultation "clues". The idea of saving life first, and success second is likely to announce that the club name will be "changed back" again, and hopefully this can become the fundamental and starting point for the new life of each team. After the end of the wild golden dollar soccer era, the pain is still lingering, and how to solve it will test the wisdom of the new senior leadership. Of course, in addition to the capital problem tournament design, also highly controversial. Shandong team in the case of the AFC Champions League is intense start, the loss of important foreign aid of Fellaini and Moises, the problem is in the tournament design. Obviously, can not be across the year of the local tournament is a lot of people are trolling the point, can not be connected with the dilemma of the world league, slowly became a problem can not be connected with the Asian leagues, J, K League is starting to consider the reform measures, the Chinese Super League should not "with" it? This is just a simple aspect, there are many, many specific problems. For example, the referee triggered a huge controversy, the inconsistency of the penalty standard, national training issues, etc., the super "unprofessional" is not a day, two days lead to, want to solve the problem really still rely on the top to start, to gradually targeted arrangements. No league foundation positive to maintain, the national team can not be good results. This is the basic rule of the green world. Of course, soccer in addition to competitive and commercial factors, love is also a topic that can not be ignored. After all, this is the foundation of the development of the soccer business, the root of the masses like. In contrast to the problems of the Chinese Super League, the fire of the "village super" league has become a beautiful landscape of the green business in 2023. Although the people's self-entertainment is amateur and unprofessional, but from the sincere participation and love, or touched a lot of viewers, wrote down a lot of unforgettable moments. Don't underestimate her role, a single spark can start a prairie fire. Although the national team we still maintain a certain degree of patience, but all levels of the echelon of the poor play, but let many supporters lost the basis of trust. Especially the poor performance of the "successor" national Olympic team is really hard to accept. After training for a long time around the world, it is incredible to be drawn by the United Arab Emirates and Maldives, and in the case of looking down on Tajikistan (the head coach Sung Yeo-dong hoped to play against a "strong team" before the match), but in their own hometown, they were given a win and a draw. And that's not all, just last week they were shut out by Malaysia, another "disgrace". The Asian Games team didn't play well at home either, with big wins over Myanmar and India not adding much value to their previous matches. After meeting South Korea, the crushing defeat reflects the huge difference in real strength. You know, U22, U23 is the orthodox successor of the national football team, in the case of 35 + Yoshida Maya and Nagatomo Yudu has long been out of the Japanese national team, China's veteran Wu Xi is still "entrusted", which is the problem of no one to follow. Of course, there is also a faint glow of light, in the light of the front. At the U15 East Asian Championships in Shandong, China's youngest players beat Japan to take the title. Many of the children in that team are from Evergrande, Luneng football school cobbled together, and the head coach team of the Japanese Nakamura Yaaki, is only a "temporary foreman" (Evergrande coach, but not in the Football Association "license" no qualifications). But in this case, their accumulation of tacit understanding, but cast the victory, which may bring new ideas. Collective training, overseas training, really not as good as the real and down-to-earth better. As Wang Frost said after the World Cup fiasco, "we really do not need to learn Brazil, Germany, Spain, we learn Japan is very good, their experience is enough for us to learn". The year 2023 is the year when Chinese soccer will slowly climb out of the "darkness" and try to feel its way forward. The new leadership on stage brought new ideas and direction, sounds good many policy guidelines, yet to be implemented, only practice, landing, promote the development of national football, can be truly recognized. After all, the "cake situation" is really too much, trust the need for practical efforts to endorse. The decline of women's soccer is a display of systemic problems, just as men's soccer suffered similar difficulties. Only by truly upgrading the charm of local tournaments and attracting the public to participate in and love the game can we truly promote market development policies and allow positive incentives to be reflected back to the clubs themselves, setting up a positive cycle. This is surely the basis of parents' willingness to allow their children to participate in the green youth training business, and no one will encourage their children to join a field where they see no hope. As the New Year approaches, may the Asian Cup be an opportunity for new beginnings, and may the practitioners truly respect the rules and arrange for professionals to be at the helm. Green fans never complain about the slow progress, what we can't tolerate is just the uncertainty of change, just can't be determined at all tomorrow.