Chapter 95: The World Youth Championship Begins

  Thanks to book friend "Liusujian" for the reward, still asking for recommendation votes ^_^

  In the center-back position, Zhang Linpeng has a strong physique, but his heading technique is not excellent. To say nothing of comparing him to Du Wei, even at Li Dawei's peak, his heading ability was far inferior. What's worse is that he lacks the positional sense necessary for a center-back, just like Du Wei (although his concentration is much better). As a result, he has not developed well in this position either.

  It was just because in that dark era, the national football team was really withering away, and there were no players available for the center-back position. As a result, his main position on the national team was still very stable. However, Zhang Linpeng's dream of playing abroad and becoming Asian Footballer of the Year seemed to be getting further and further away from being realized...

  But in this era, due to Bai Jiajun's height issue, it has already shrunk a lot compared to history. The East team also has two central defenders who are quite good by domestic standards and can even be said to be excellent. Therefore, Zhang Linpeng should not take this path again. If he focuses on developing in the right-back position, it is still possible for him to reach Sun Jie's height. Although his talent may be slightly inferior, Zhang Linpeng works harder and has a better development platform...

  Compared to Zhang Linpeng, Cai Huikang's talent is even worse. Although he has a strong body and good physical fitness, his flexibility is really poor. When facing agile opponents, he is often easily shaken off, and can only rely on team defense to make people feel at ease. However, this little fatty has an introverted fighting spirit and a serious attitude. After years of hard training, he has developed solid basic skills. Not only is his ability to intercept the ball excellent, but he also holds the ball very steadily. Unless multiple players surround him or commit fouls, it's difficult to take the ball away from him. Additionally, as Dongfang team emphasizes overall play, Cai Huikang's teamwork awareness is also quite good. If the new national team is built around Dongfang system players in the future, and little fatty continues to grow, he can fully take on the role of main defensive midfielder for the national team during his peak career period.

  In the 89-90 age group of the Eastern team, there were many small players with obvious strengths and weaknesses, such as Jiang Zhipeng, known as "Little Shandong", who was good at breaking through on the wing, Zhu Zhenrong, nicknamed "Second Master Brother" by fans, and Wang Shengchao, a versatile player. Although they did not have the same natural talent as the "Four Little Dragons", due to their older age, they actually played in the national youth team earlier, which was undoubtedly very beneficial for their growth.

  Among these people, there was also Deng Zhuoxiang, who was originally brought in by Gao Jun. However, what made Gao Jun feel a bit sorry for Xiao Deng was that although he had worked very hard over the past two years, Xu Guanghai never liked pure technical midfielders (after being let down by Peng Weiguo when coaching the national Olympic team, he became disenchanted with so-called "technical players" who only had fancy skills but couldn't perform under strong opposition). Furthermore, Zhu Zhenrong, who was equally outstanding in terms of technical awareness, had switched to a more suitable attacking midfielder position earlier than expected, creating direct competition. Although Zhu didn't particularly impress Xu either, being a product of the prestigious Chongming youth training system made him more likely to stand out compared to an outsider like Deng. As a result, whenever Xiao Deng got a chance to play, it was always as a winger rather than his more suitable attacking midfielder position. Compared to Rong Hao, who had secured a starting spot, Xiao Deng's time at Dongfang hadn't been particularly enjoyable...

  However, considering Deng's current age is still the golden period for practicing techniques, playing fewer matches may not necessarily be a bad thing. In fact, due to his hard work and dedication in recent years, plus the help of French youth coaches, Deng's technical level has already approached that of the historical peak period, and he continues to improve. As long as he masters the true skills, gold will shine wherever it goes, so Gao Jun is not worried about his future...

  This year's national youth team, with so many excellent young players, has a much stronger lineup compared to history, and the coordination is also more tacit. Although it's not easy for them to replicate the "miracle" of Finland's World Youth Championship, Gao Jun still believes they can achieve better results than in history...

  Among the three national players in the Dongfang team, Ge Lin was selected for the national team relatively late. Therefore, he participated in the first two training sessions of the National Youth Team after Klinsmann took office (other National Youth Team members who were not selected for the National Team also did so). He gained recognition from the old man and was determined to be the main center of the National Youth Team early on. To some extent, this is similar to Hao Haidong in Germany, except that the latter had enough free time to participate in the National Youth Team's training due to the difficulty of playing in club matches.

  However, the main positions of these two people have long been solidified. On the other hand, Gao Jun and Yu Hai, who are more important in the national team, did not participate in any training sessions with the youth national team after Krawczyk took office, so Krawczyk was not very familiar with them, and even wanted to let them be substitutes at first.

  However, the two soon proved their strength. In the first internal training match of the national youth team's training camp this time, Gao Jun scored four goals alone and helped the substitute side to beat the original main lineup with a 5-3 score, which was actually quite hot. Yu Hai also had an excellent performance with one shot and two passes.

  In the end, the two of them relied on their slightly stronger strength to overwhelm Zhu Ting and Lu Lin, who were in hot form at the time, and naturally became the main left forward and main left winger of the national youth team. The number of players from Dongfang Team in the main lineup of the national youth team increased to 5, and if we also count He Junmin and Zhang Chenglin, who had played for Dongfang Team before, there were as many as 7 main players belonging to the "Dongfang system" in this national youth team, making this national youth team far more tacit than in history.

  In addition, due to the personnel configuration and training with the World Youth Championship, Toulon Cup, club and national team matches, this 85 National Youth Team is also superior to that one in history in terms of technology, speed and competition experience, which laid a solid foundation for their good performance in the Dutch World Youth Championship.

  However, due to the fact that they won the championship in the Asian Youth Games, this team unfortunately fell into the "Group of Death" F group, which is recognized by this World Youth Championship, along with Nigeria, who finished second in this World Youth Championship, and Brazil, who finished third. The other team, Switzerland, was also not easy to deal with, as they were able to qualify from a strong European region. To finish in the top two of such a group and advance to the next round would be much more difficult than it was in that possibly weakest group in history...