Chapter 90: National Football or National Youth

  Thanks to book friend "Seven Boundary Weiwei" for the reward, asking for recommendation votes and member clicks ^_^

  After this round of the game, the Super League will make way for the national team training and there will be a month-long break. However, Dongfang still has an away match in the AFC Champions League group stage to play. Considering that the result of this match is already irrelevant, none of the players who received the call-up from the national team participated. Moreover, Ribeiro was not yet recovered from injury, and as a result, Dongfang, which lacked more than ten main players and substitutes (including third-tier national team call-ups), suffered a 0-4 defeat in their last group stage match of the AFC Champions League away to a Thai team, once again highlighting the inadequacy of their bench depth.

  During this break, the national team led by Ali Han as the champion of the previous Asian Cup will participate in the Confederations Cup to be held in Germany from June 15th to 29th, 2005; while the U23 national team led by Klinsmann will participate in the World Youth Championship to be held in the Netherlands from June 11th to July 3rd, 2005. Gao Jun, Yu Hai, Ge Lin, Huo Jiamin, Zhou Hua Kai and Zhao Yijia, these six players who are still within the age range of the U23 national team have become the main force or important substitutes for the national team. Will they follow the national team to fight in the Confederations Cup or follow the U23 national team to participate in the World Youth Championship?

  The two head coaches naturally hope that their own lineup is stronger, so they both propose to have six people join their team. As the national football coach, Arihan's position is slightly higher, and his words carry more weight; from the importance of the game, the Confederations Cup is a formal match for the adult national team, which is obviously more important; as for training value, there will be opportunities to compete with real world-class teams in the Confederations Cup, which is naturally far superior to competing with future stars in the Youth World Cup. Although many European scouts will appear at the Youth World Cup, if these six hopefuls can perform well in the adult national team's global competition like the Confederations Cup, their prospects will only be more promising.

  From various perspectives, these six people should have participated in the Confederations Cup with the national team rather than playing in the World Youth Championship with the U-20 team. However, the leaders of the Chinese Football Association unexpectedly decided to let the six join the U-20 team to prepare for the World Youth Championship, and from their standpoint, this decision seems to have sufficient reason...

  Firstly, due to China's special national conditions, the Football Association has always attached more importance to the Olympics than the World Cup, especially since the 2008 Olympics were held in Beijing. The poor performance would be held accountable, so it was even more emphasized to an unbelievable extent. As early as when the U-85 youth team was established, they were already given the title of "08 Stars", and at that time there were still more than four years before the Beijing Olympics.

  In fact, this batch of players had been preparing since the successful bid for the Beijing Olympics. Due to the slow effect of basic training and poor evaluation of achievements, the Football Association adopted a very utilitarian approach. Firstly, a large amount of money was used as funding for these national youth teams, allowing them to participate in numerous warm-up matches to hone their skills and accumulate experience. Objectively speaking, the excellent performance of the 85 national youth team at the Holland Youth World Cup should not be unrelated to this. However, the massive investment only cultivated a handful of players, neglecting grassroots development and laying hidden dangers for the decline of Chinese football.

  In addition, the Football Association relaxed its supervision of over-age phenomena, making the main age group of 85 national youth teams in history (85-86) the most widespread and largest average over-age range ever. Later, a large number of "talents" were injured by Shang Yong, which was not surprising at all. Fortunately, Gao Jun led an even smaller team to win the championship unexpectedly in the Finnish World Youth Championship, which received high attention from the Football Association and partially changed this strategy, objectively reducing some serious harm to the future development of Chinese football.

  Apart from the special importance of this national youth team, there is another obvious reason why the Chinese Football Association attaches more importance to the Dutch Youth World Cup. In their view, even if those six hopeful stars participate in the tournament, it will be very difficult for the Chinese team to achieve good results in the strong Union Cup, but if they let these six players participate in the Youth World Cup, relying on the experience, skills and confidence gained from playing in national team matches, they may help the youth national team achieve excellent results. On one hand, there is nothing to gain, while on the other hand, there is a great hope of achieving political performance, so it's not surprising what choice the old men of the Chinese Football Association will make...

  But to be honest, even for Gao Lin and the three Eastern players, they would rather participate in the World Youth Championship than the Confederations Cup. Gao Lin's main consideration is that performing well in the World Youth Championship can bring out a batch of young players, which is more valuable for Chinese football than gaining experience in the Confederations Cup. Moreover, leading the national youth team to achieve good results can also cultivate his leadership qualities, which has always been lacking in the introverted Gao Lin.

  And the other two, especially Xiao Jianming, who has already seen the world-class strength of Bayern, have a clear understanding of their own abilities and know that they are not capable of competing with established world superstars at present. Instead of going to the Confederations Cup to be humiliated, it's better to compete with top players of the same age in the Youth World Cup to more accurately assess one's true potential, which is obviously more beneficial for future development.

  Apart from the national team and the U-23 team, the new U-19 team also had a training camp during this break. Although there were no official matches during this period, head coach Zhang Ning of the U-19 team is preparing to make full use of this opportunity to play some warm-up matches in preparation for the Peru World Youth Championship in September.

  Due to this age group being the so-called "non-Olympic age group", players who became famous earlier were often absorbed into the national youth team, while players of suitable age mostly chose to reduce their age in order to be selected for the next national junior team. This is because that national junior team belongs to the Olympic age group and receives more attention from the Football Association. Once they achieve results, there is a greater hope of entering professional teams. Furthermore, the foundation of Chinese football youth training has begun to collapse, with more and more football schools unable to sustain themselves and being forced to close down. As a result, Zhang was left with only over 100 suitable players to choose from, leaving him speechless...

  In this case, the Dongfang team, which has many young players and has achieved good results in both the Chinese Super League and the AFC Champions League, naturally became a major contributor to the national youth team. With Xu Genbao and Gao Jun's strong recommendations, as many as 14 players from Dongfang were selected for the national youth team, accounting for nearly half of the total number. Although due to their relatively young age, it is unlikely that all of them will be retained, with Xu Genbao estimating that only five or six of them will likely become regular starters. Nevertheless, the "Dongfang faction" will undoubtedly become the largest faction within the national youth team, directly influencing the team's tactical style on the field...