The AFC Competition Committee held a meeting in Ain, United Arab Emirates, on May 24, and confirmed that China will host the 42nd U20 Asian Cup in 2025. This is the first intercontinental competition hosted by Chinese football after the epidemic, which is undoubtedly a good thing at this stage. However, as the host, in addition to the success of the event itself, the performance of the Chinese team as the host will undoubtedly be of more concern. Judging from the current situation, the core issue of the current 05 age group of the National Youth Team is recruitment.
① Bid to repair the relationship with AFC
This bid for the U20 Asian Cup should be said to be an important part of a series of plans and measures implemented by the new leadership of the Chinese Football Association to repair the relationship between Chinese football, the Asian Football Association and FIFA after taking office. As we all know, China was forced to give up the right to host the 2023 Asian Cup, together with a series of other factors, which led to the overall "rout" of Chinese football on the diplomatic front and further decline in the status of international football.
In the face of such an adverse situation, an important strategy of the leadership of the New Football Association in participating in a series of foreign affairs activities is to express their desire to host a series of international events, especially youth events. As early as the end of last year, when Song Kai, Chairman of the Chinese Football Association, paid a visit to Salman, Chairman of the Asian Football Association, he clearly expressed his strong desire to host the Asian Football Association Youth Games; Song Kai also expressed a similar wish when he paid a visit to FIFA President Ivantino.
Moreover, the Chinese Football Association has not only done lip service, but also expressed its will in no way as a diplomatic rhetoric. It has taken concrete actions. After studying the relevant situation of the Asian Football Association and FIFA youth events, the Chinese Football Association formally proposed to the Asian Football Association at the beginning of this year that it would like to host the U17 Asian Cup or the U20 Asian Cup in 2025, and by contrast, the intention of hosting the U17 Asian Cup is stronger.
The reason for this decision is that China's U20 national youth team of 2003 age group will reach the top eight in the 2023 U20 Asian Cup, which means that the new Chinese U20 national youth team of 2005 age group will become the first level team in the 2025 Asian Cup qualifier, and the grouping in the qualifier will be relatively better, It is beneficial for the Chinese National Youth Team to continue to strive to enter the finals; However, the U17 youth team of the 2006 age group will finally rank 13th in the 2023 U17 Asian Cup. The new U17 youth team, that is, the team of the 2008 age group, will only be the second level team in the preliminary contest, which means that there will be a strong team of the first level in the preliminary contest, and it will still be difficult to reach the final stage.
However, whether it is the U20 Asian Cup or the U17 Asian Cup, the general attitude of the Chinese Football Association is that only one of these events can be won. By hosting such youth intercontinental events, the relationship with AFC will be gradually repaired, paving the way for the next bid for more important events. What's more, since 2010, China has not hosted men's football matches of all levels of national teams under the Asian Football Association for more than 10 years.
Although there was no clear statement on the number of member associations applying for the U20 Asian Cup at the AFC Competition Committee meeting, it is understood that there are not a few member associations applying for the U20 Asian Cup. For example, the Iraqi Football Association and the Oman Football Association submitted their bids. In the end, the AFC Competition Committee chose the Chinese Football Association, which is actually a reward for their positive attitude towards China.
In fact, the AFC has always hoped to host the tournament in China. What is unknown is that after the 2023 Asian Cup was changed from China to Qatar due to various factors such as the epidemic situation, although the hardware conditions in Qatar need not be mentioned, the various off court requirements of Qatar during the tournament were very uncomfortable and there were many private complaints. Of course, in public, the AFC must "highly praise Qatar for successfully taking over the Asian Cup", after all, these are the necessary language in diplomatic occasions.
From this point of view, China's second hosting of the 36th U19 Asian Youth Championship (the predecessor of the current U20 Asian Cup) after Zibo hosted the tournament in 2010 is a positive first step towards the comprehensive restoration of relations with the Asian Football Association for Chinese football at this stage.
② How to prepare for the national youth is the key
As far as the Chinese Football Association is concerned, in addition to promoting the relationship with the Asian Football Association, it is more important to hope that it can take the advantage of the host country to try to make some changes in the current situation of Chinese football teenagers. To put it more bluntly, I hope to take this opportunity to enable China's youth team to return to the stage of the World Series and take the first step to revitalize the Chinese men's football team! Because only when the youth stage has a certain fighting capacity in Asia and can compete with Asian powers, can the men's national team have the foundation and strength to compete with Asian powers when it enters the adult stage in the future.
Since the 2005 Netherlands U20 World Youth Championships and Peru U17 World Youth Championships, the youth teams at all levels of the Chinese men's football team will be far away from the stage of the World Youth Championships for 20 years! During this period, even in the Jin and Yuan football era, the Chinese men's football team failed to reproduce the scene of stepping into the World Cup. The fundamental reason is precisely that the foundation of young people is becoming weaker. By hosting the U20 Asian Cup, China's U20 National Youth Team at the age of 2005 can get off to a good start, and even enter the top four Asian World Youth Tournaments with the help of the host, which can at least be regarded as a light and hope for the dark and confused Chinese football! This is another ambition hidden behind the Chinese Football Association's bid to host the U20 Asian Cup.
Back to the current 05 age group of the National Youth Team, how is its own preparation? Frankly speaking, the situation is not as optimistic as expected.
U19 National Youth Team has only 18 participants in training in Xianghe
Take the current training in Xianghe as an example. On May 17, the Chinese Football Association released the latest 37 person list of the 05 age group National Youth Team for training. The team began to gather in Xianghe Base on May 20, but as of May 24, only 18 players had reported to the team in Xianghe, including 3 goalkeepers. Even the number of people who reported to the team a few days earlier was less than half of the list.
The players who have not yet reported for duty basically sign up for the league in the first team of each professional club. Because the league is still in progress, even if they cannot play in their own teams, it will be more practical for them to stay temporarily from the perspective of the club. No matter from the perspective of the players themselves or from the perspective of the National Youth Team, if the players stay in the club and can participate in the game, even if they do not participate in the training of the National Youth Team, it is not a big problem. After all, the competitive state can be guaranteed. But the problem is that most players are basically on the bench, which is the most worrying.
Compared with other Asian teams, the Chinese U19 National Youth Team of the 2005 age group started late. The team officially put up its flag in January this year, participated in the first international warm-up match in late March, and visited Indonesia for two warm-up matches with the Indonesian National Youth Team.
More importantly, taking over the U19 National Youth Team is a new challenge for the head coach Jurjevic, and the first challenge is to fully understand and get familiar with the players of this age. What can explain the problem is that this Xianghe training is the third training of the National Youth Team in the year. Among the 37 players recruited, 17 of the 23 players who visited Indonesia were retained, and another 2 participated in the training before the visit. Among the other 18 new faces, Shi Songchen, Wang Yudong and Du Yuezheng, who went to Qatar with the National Olympic Team for training, were three "jump grade" players. Wang Yudong and Du Yuezheng both participated in the Paris Olympic Games qualifiers. Of the other 15 people, only 4 participated in the first phase of intensive training in Shenzhen in January. In other words, the reason for the relatively large change of personnel in the third phase of intensive training is probably still to investigate and select players.
Jurjevich directs the training of 05 National Youth Team in Xianghe
Although the Chinese Super League matches this weekend will be suspended due to FIFA International Match Day, the Chinese League A and the Chinese League B do not stop. Of the 37 players recruited by the National Youth Team, 11 are registered in the Chinese League B and 8 in the Chinese League A, accounting for more than half of the total. Of course, before the Weinan Four Nations Tournament, maybe the teams can release people, but young players need time to understand the technical and tactical ideas of the coach and the team, and also need to run in. This is obviously a difficult problem for the National Youth Team.
Moreover, since China has won the right to host the U20 Asian Cup, the Chinese National Youth Team will directly qualify for the finals. It seems that there is more time to prepare, but in fact, the current national youth team only uses the national team's competition window to organize training. For example, the first training session in January is the winter break, and the second training session in March is arranged in the competition window of the national team in March; This training is also ahead of the national team's competition window. At the current level of domestic young players, it is far from enough to just use the national team's match window. Moreover, during the competition window period of these national teams, the League A and League B are not suspended, especially after October, when it comes to the relegation and promotion of each team, perhaps even more reluctant to release. Therefore, I am afraid that the trouble of employing the national youth team has not come yet.
Su Yuliang, who plays in Serbia, has also returned
Many fans think that the last 2003 age group of the National Youth Team performed well, but they seem to forget the important point, that is, because the last group of the National Youth Team caught up with the epidemic, the Spanish coach Antonio used the method of "long-term training" which has been criticized by the domestic. At that time, because the youth games could not be carried out normally, and the personnel were not scattered among different teams like the current 05 age group players, the national youth team was relatively complete when organizing the training. Whether at home or abroad, the team members are always relatively complete. After long-term intensive training, the team members are relatively unified in implementing technical and tactical requirements in actual combat. However, the current national youth team at the age of 05 is restricted by the actual conditions, and cannot adopt the method of the team at the age of 03 coached by Antonio.
Du Yuezheng, a grade jumper of the National Olympic Team at the age of 01, has returned from Portugal to participate in training
Under such circumstances, how can the National Youth Team be ready? What's more, although the individual skills and abilities of the National Youth Team at the age of 05 are much better than those of the previous players at the age of 03, 01 and 99 in the same period, the horizontal comparison with the Asian giants is still inferior. Under such a realistic situation, if we still prepare for the game step by step, and want to make a breakthrough in the U20 Asian Cup at home in 2005, even if we have the advantage of the host, we may not be very likely. Just like the 91 age group of national youth teams represented by Wu Lei, Zhang Xizhe, Yan Junling, In the 2010 Zibo U19 Asian Youth Championships held at home, although it reached the top eight in the group, it failed to win the World Youth Championships in the most critical quarter final at the foot of the North Korean team. Therefore, in order to make a breakthrough, the Chinese Football Association may need to lean towards this team in many aspects, and improve the fighting capacity and hard strength of the national youth team, so that it is possible to make a breakthrough!
Ma Dexing, full media reporter of Titan Sports Weekly, reports
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