In our country's soccer map, there are two deep-rooted local stars, they originated from the same fertile ground, one in the national football field has been repeatedly criticized, while the other was greatly praised by Xu Genbao for his outstanding performance, and the future prospects are bright!
Although the Iron Battalion is known for its mobility, the National Football League lineup has given birth to these two immovable rocks. What kind of power do they possess that makes them hard to part with? Careful exploration, our country's soccer world seems to have few such characters, so who exactly are they?
Let's talk about the older of the two, Cheng Yaodong, the head coach of the National Olympic team who recently led the team to play Malaysia!
Cheng Yaodong and Fan Zhiyi have played side by side and belong to the same era. Cheng Yaodong was a defender in Xu Genbao's national second team, and despite his small stature, he was loved by Xu Genbao. Xu Genbao once predicted that Cheng Yaodong would become an outstanding manager in the future. Now, Cheng Yaodong has been a coach for many years, from the head coach of the Shanghai International Team in 2003 to the head coach of the National Olympic Team in 2023, but his achievements do not seem to have reached the heights that Xu Genbao expected.
Since 2018, Cheng Yaodong has been in charge of the national brand coaching whip for five years. In those five years, the national team under his leadership has grown, but the results have not improved with it, and the outlook for the future is worrying. Just two days ago in the battle of Malaysia, they returned with 0-1 hate.
Despite a 2-1 comeback win in the second match, the field was a little woeful and slightly inferior to the Malaysian team. However, many of the players in this team will be the main candidates for the next World Cup. It must be said that Ching Yiu Tung's coaching journey has been exceptionally difficult, and no matter how the team performs, his position is as solid as a mountain.
Next, let's talk about the younger one. As a player, he is not young, having reached the age of 32. He is the main goalkeeper of the national soccer team, Yan Junling, since Zeng Cheng retired, he has been occupying the position of the national goal, no one can shake.
With his tall stature and long arms, Yan Junling possesses the qualities of a good goalkeeper. During the period of playing for his country, he also showed excellent performance, but in the overall strength is still slightly inferior to Zeng Cheng. Not only that, Yan Junling also often suffered from fans' bombardment. Whenever the national football team finished the game, he always became the object of criticism. In fact, this is not Yan Junling's fault, but because of the poor performance of the national football team, the alternation of victory and defeat, once the loss, the goalkeeper naturally become the target, just as the team won, the striker is always praised.
Fans have also nicknamed Yan "The Regent" because he is the one whose goal will be broken down if the opponent shoots accurately during a match. Despite repeated criticisms, Yan's position in the national team is as strong as ever, with coaches from Lippi to Jankovic choosing the goalkeeper, so is there really something unique about him that fans can't discover?
Cheng Yaodong and Yan Junling both came from Genbao base, nowadays, many people active in China's soccer industry originated from here, and because of this, Xu Genbao is known as the godfather of Chinese soccer youth!
