In the early morning of December 25th, the sun shone through the training ground in the United Arab Emirates, reflecting on the first confrontation training of the national soccer team. Reporter Ma Dexing reported that the team quickly entered the state of preparation after arriving in this foreign land, and head coach Yang Kovic was particularly satisfied with the performance of the international players.
On the training field, the players' morale was high, their movements were precise, and the basic requirements such as stealing and sense of urgency in confrontation were executed brilliantly. Particularly striking is the progress of the shooting practice, the previous low hit rate of the national soccer team, this training hit rate was more than 50%, approaching 60%. Forward players such as Lin Liangming, Zhang Yuning and Wu Lei hit almost a hundred shots despite only having about six shots each. Xu Haofeng managed to put the ball into the net on three consecutive replicas of his strong shot. The international players earned the applause of Jankovic for their outstanding performance.
On the other side of the field, Xu Xin, under the guidance of assistant coach Zheng Zhi, was alone on the sidelines, running laps for training. Compared to other international players, Xu Xin did not make special preparations before the supplementary recruitment because he did not receive the training notice in advance, resulting in a lack of physical fitness. But even so, he insisted on daily training and added joint training in the final confrontation training. As for Zhu Chenjie, the team is focusing on his long-term rehabilitation due to a previous injury, and after nearly an hour of training, he moved alone and did not participate in the confrontation training.
After the training, Jankovic highly praised the players' attitude and performance, and even described it as "perfect". He hoped that the players would continue to maintain this high spirit and competitive state in the warm-up match the next day.
This afternoon, the national team will have its first warm-up match in the UAE against Regional Sports, a second division team in Abu Dhabi that started from youth training. The team is currently ranked eighth in the UAE's second division, with three wins, seven draws and two losses in 12 matches, accumulating 16 points.
