When "Langfang City of Glory" embarked on the journey of the Champions League at the beginning of the season, this new team did not attract much attention. However, with amazing momentum, they defeated strong teams such as Shaanxi Chang'an United and Guangzhou Shadow Leopard, and finally won the Champions League with a complete victory, successfully joining the professional league.
Winning the championship celebration site, the captain Liu Junwei but chose to silently hide in a side, quietly observing the teammates celebrating. This northeastern man, usually not much to say, the camera is even more low-key.
Liu Junwei has confessed that one of the reasons the team made it to B this year was that other teams didn't take them seriously. And he continued to keep a low profile after winning the title.
To open Liu Junwei's box, in fact, is very simple: discuss business issues with him. The reporter recalled that the first time he watched Liu Junwei coaching a game was in 2017, when he was the head coach of China's U16 national junior team, although in the "Silk Road - Huashan Cup" match to 0-4 defeat against Japan, but Liu Junwei's memory of the game is still clear, and the loss of a deep reflection.
This season, Langfang City of Glory won the championship with a penalty shootout victory over Shenzhen Youth in the final. Liu Junwei didn't forget to summarize the team's shortcomings. He pointed out that the team's passing success rate dropped in the final, but he believed that the performance in the game would be even better as long as they persisted in training.
Liu Junwei has had a rich and colorful coaching career, he has worked as a coach in the Chinese Super League, Chinese First Division, Chinese Second Division, Chinese Championship, national and ladder teams. During his playing days, he played for Bayi, Qingdao Zhongneng and Nanchang Hengyuan, etc. After the 2009 season, Liu Junwei began to prepare for his future coaching career by attending training courses for C and D level coaches and obtaining a certificate for B level coaches. 2011, he ended his playing career and began to work as a physical fitness coach for Nanchang Hengyuan, obtaining a certificate for A level coaches. 2013, he completed his studies for professional level coaches. professional level coaching and then led the 1995 age group National Youth Football Team to the Asian Youth Championship as Zheng Xiong's assistant coach.
In 2015, Liu Junwei coached for the first time on his own as head coach of Shanghai Shenxin.In 2016, he worked as an assistant coach at Wuhan Zhuoer, and later coached the Beijin reserve team to the Central League Reserve League Championship.In 2017, he coached China's U16 National Junior Team, before taking over as head coach of Suzhou Dongwu in 2019. During his time at Suzhou Dongwu, Liu Junwei led the team to a second place finish in the South Zone and made it to the Central League via a bye.In 2022, during his final stint with Hebei, Liu served as the team's acting head coach. After the Hebei team was disbanded, he became the head coach of the newly formed Langfang City of Glory.
Langfang City of Glory Club did not give Liu Junwei any performance requirements at the beginning of its formation. At that time, the team had only a dozen official members, and the bonding time was also very short. But from the first day of the team's formation, Liu Junwei was convinced that he could bring the team into the professional league.
Liu Junwei believes that the coach is the most important link in the team, as long as the coach can pinch the team into a whole, it can make the team's fighting strength get a huge boost.
There is a voice that Langfang team is essentially the Hebei team "small", by the former Hebei Football Club ladder team as the basis for the formation. For such a statement, Liu Junwei does not agree, he said, Langfang team is actually from the small white paper put together, only part of the players are the original Hebei ladder players.
For the Langfang team to participate in the Central Champions League, they had to form a team with mainly players from their province. They organized the Hebei players who had not yet found their next home, many of whom were 18 or 19 year olds. Liu Junwei also wanted to bring in strong reinforcements, but was limited to the club's budget and was unable to attract any big names.
At the beginning of the formation of Langfang City of Glory, there was a Hebei-based midfielder that Liu Junwei was very optimistic about, but ultimately, because of salary issues, the player chose to leave and join another Chinese Championship team.
As this incident exemplifies, the Langfang City of Glory team doesn't have much appeal in the player market. Liu Junwei had to contact some of the players he used to bring in, and whether they could come or not depended on whether the other side could accept the Langfang team's salary. After a period of two-way selection, only to let this team gradually molded.
The choice of who to bring in also depends on a key factor: he has to match the Langfang team's tactical play. Liu Junwei emphasized that if a player can pass two or three people in a row, but his passing is not good, they will not bring him in because he does not match the team's playing style.
The concept of organizing an attack from the goalkeeper's position is one that Liu Junwei first heard in 2013 from his own professional-level coaching instructor, Stephen. Therefore, even though Chen Nancun's height has no advantage, Liu Junwei is still adamant in choosing him as the team's starting goalkeeper.
Chen Nancun
Of course, this concept is not new nowadays, but in Europe, many "goalkeepers" are criticized by fans for their frequent mistakes. This tactical approach has also been questioned. But Liu Junwei has never doubted the correctness of this way of playing.
"We faced Wuhan Pony Crossing after our successful run to B, and the lineup was rotated. Our substitute goalkeeper made a similar mistake and conceded a goal. But I don't think it's a problem, the mistake was made because of sticking to our own way of playing. The fact that it was a mistake shows that we haven't trained enough accordingly, but it doesn't negate the path."
The Langfang City of Glory team made it through the Central Championship Regionals and made it to the finals. When the finals draw grouping was announced, many judged that Langfang was only a four to five place power in the group.
On paper, the strength of the rivals in the same group, Guangzhou Shadow Leopard, Shaanxi Chang'an United, Dalian Huayi and Guangxi Hengchen, are all above Langfang. However, through the regional tournament matches and weekday training, Liu Junwei is very confident in his players.
In the first game of the finals, Langfang defeated Changle Vajra Legs 6-0. Facing Shaanxi Chang'an United in the second round was the first big test for Langfang.
Most of the players of Shaanxi Chang'an United come from Shaanxi Chang'an Athletic, a former Central League One team. They have experienced domestic soccer players such as Ding Jie, Mi Haolun, Pang Zhiquan and Ma Xiaolei.
When Liu Junwei saw this team at home, he recalled a scene from four years ago.Before the start of the 2019 season, the then Shaanxi Chang'an Athletic was interested in inviting Liu Junwei to coach, but Liu had to politely decline Shaanxi at this point as he had already accepted an offer from Suzhou Dongwu.
The face of this "new Northwest Wolves", Liu Junwei believes: "from the individual ability, game experience and physical confrontation, we are inferior to each other. Can compare is the overall tactical play, with the overall advantage to make up for the individual disadvantage."
In the end, Langfang, with the overall advantage at home, made Shaanxi kick hard, like a punch in the cotton, and had the strength to make it work. With a last-minute killer goal, Langfang took the game 1-0.
Langfang's visit to Guangzhou Shadow Leopards was a clean 2-0 win. With two consecutive victories over two of the most popular teams in the league, all the teams could no longer underestimate the "baby soldiers", and it also boosted the confidence of Langfang team itself.
"I've always been a firm believer that high-quality, high-intensity training is fundamental. It takes a lot of repetition if you're going to practice right. And the intensity of the competition is actually just sixty to seventy percent of the intensity of our training." Liu Junwei said, "As long as you practice in place when you train, in the middle of the competition, you will feel relaxed instead."
In addition to his own research, in the path of Liu Junwei's teaching, there are two people to help him is also very critical: one is his wife, one is his teacher.
Liu Junwei's wife, a former Beijing women's soccer player, retired from the game and studied foreign languages at the university, and later became a translator for Stephan Rotman, a German-born technical advisor and professional-level coaching instructor hired by the CFA.
While studying under Stephen, Liu Junwei met his wife and eventually got together. The couple share similar interests and both have a great love for soccer. The two usually talk about soccer, and will even discuss the way to pass the ball at the dinner table.
"There are passes that are inverted triangular passes given after a ground match in front of the field", Liu Junwei's wife gestured with her chopsticks on the dining table, "So such a pass can be said to be the last pass of a ground match, not a purposeless 45-degree angle start, or an underhand pass. So when counting the number of passes and the success rate of passes, such a pass should not be counted."
There are many other similar discussions between the couple. Liu Junwei's wife has not been enrolled in the Langfang team's coaching staff, but she does volunteer to help by collecting and analyzing the players' training and game data for her husband.
We train our players to pay attention to their stats," she said. In the long run, players will look at it after training and games: what their heart rate was and how much distance they ran. It's very positive and players can visualize their performance more."
In addition to this, Liu Junwei's wife will help her husband continue to communicate with his former teacher, Stephen.
Speaking of this mentor, Liu Junwei is always very touched: "Stephan used to be Klopp's teacher as well, and he gave me a lot of help during his time in China. Even later when he returned to Germany, he would seriously help me analyze and guide me on anything I needed to ask for advice, even watching videos of the teams I coached and giving some suggestions."
Liu Junwei communicates online with his mentor Stephen through his wife as a translator.
For example, when the City of Glory in Langfang was playing in the Central Championship Regionals, all the goals happened before the 60th minute, but at that time, Liu Junwei didn't notice this detail. Stephen said to Liu Junwei: "The fact that your team didn't score after 60 minutes shows that the intensity of the training was not enough and the players didn't have continuity."
Liu Junwei and Stephen discussed the situation and adjusted the intensity and methods of training. By the time of the Central Championship Finals, Langfang had solved the problem, including against Shaanxi and Shadow Leopard, where the team scored late in the game.
Perhaps because of Stephen's relationship, Liu Junwei's most concerned about and appreciated coach is Klopp, the background picture of his circle of friends is the picture of Klopp commanding the game.
In 2013, Liu Junwei has been concerned about Jurgen Klopp's Borussia Dortmund team; and now "Uncle Jag" coaching Liverpool, as long as it is not in the middle of the night, Liverpool's matches Liu Junwei almost every game must be watched, but also some of Liverpool's offensive and defensive conversions, the front of the field pressure details of the editing out, put to the players to see.
The players will also be very serious in carrying out his requirements in the middle of training.
One of Klopp's hallmarks is that he talks at length in his post-match press conferences, summarizing the game in great detail, often chatting about technical and tactical details.
Liu Junwei's wife would also select useful clips from them and translate them to show her husband so that he could understand Klopp's thinking more clearly.
Watching Liverpool games, the starting point is actually to learn Klopp's tactical philosophy. But with the passage of time, Liu Junwei also gradually have the habit of fans.
When Liverpool wasted their chances, he would also be anxious, regretful, and even screamed out. At this time, the lady will promptly remind: "You are not a fan, you have to watch the game from a professional point of view!"
