Chapter 15: Asian Youth Games (Part 2)
Yu Hai cut inside to the middle road, and suddenly had many attacking options, while the Korean players were at a loss for how to defend. The originally tight defense was instantly riddled with holes. Yu Hai, who fully utilized his speed and agility, continuously created two scoring opportunities on the middle road, but unfortunately shot with his weaker right foot after cutting inside from the left (in fact, Yu Hai's left-footed shots were also terrible, even before his major injury, at that time his strengths were mainly in dribbling and crossing, and he became the assist king of the Chinese Super League at just 17 years old). The accuracy was really not commendable, and both chances to shoot with both feet were off-target, causing coach Liu Chunming to clench his fists in frustration...
But as the saying goes, "things don't happen three times", Yu Hai's third shot finally fell within the goal frame, although unfortunately it was bravely blocked by the Korean goalkeeper, but the ball didn't fly far away. At some point, Zhang Chenglin, who had run to the edge of the penalty area, volleyed a magnificent world-class shot that left the Korean goalkeeper, who had already fallen to the ground, completely helpless and could only watch as the ball entered the net. The two sides were once again back on the same starting line...
After the score was tied, the Korean team immediately counterattacked, but as Gao Lin knew well, the Korean team's tactics of attacking in formation were quite simple. As long as they tightened their defense and didn't lose focus, it would be difficult for them to get good chances. On the contrary, the Chinese team took advantage of the counterattack opportunities to threaten the Korean team's goal multiple times.
In the 11th minute of the second half, Gao Jun finally got his first shot on goal in this match after being tightly marked by South Korean defenders, but due to the psychological pressure caused by the opponent's goalkeeper's brilliant performance, Gao Jun over-pursued the angle and hit the post, fortunately Yu Hai, who had already formed a tacit understanding with him, made a timely run and easily slotted the ball into the net.
15 minutes later, Di Jiankun pulled out a high-quality shot before being substituted, but it hit the crossbar and bounced back. In time, Gao Junyi jumped up and headed the ball into the net, scoring his only goal in this match, which was also the last goal of the game. The Chinese U17 team defeated their old rival South Korea 3-1 and won the championship of this Asian Youth Games!
Gao Jun's outstanding performance in the last two matches of the Asian Junior Championships earned him a lot of praise from industry experts, but because Xu Genbao had "blown it up" too much at first, people with strong contrarian psychology instead kept saying that Gao Jun was just a "flash in the pan", "just lucky" and so on. The media also seized this opportunity to sensationalize it again, without caring whether the kid would be ruined by all this or not!
However, Gao Jun didn't have the leisure to deal with them now. After pulling Hao Jiamin into the base, inspired by this, Gao Jun thought of a few other domestic young players and made a request to Coach Xu...
"What? Ball exploration?", Coach Xu, although currently the best domestic coach, is still accustomed to the old model of coaches completing ball exploration work by the way. He did not have the idea of setting up a full-time ball explorer in the base or even in the future club. Therefore, when Gao Jun proposed to take on the part-time job as a ball explorer, he was very surprised. However, after considering it for a while, Coach Xu finally agreed to Gao Jun's request...
This aspect is considering that top-notch genius players often have unique insights, and the previous examples of Gao Jun helping Xie Wenjun and Cai Huikang change positions, which made their performance quickly become worlds apart, are enough to prove his ability in this regard. Recently, he dug up Heo Joon-moo without spending a single penny from the base, but he is enough to become the core player after building the team in the future, which further illustrates Gao Jun's vision.
More importantly, Xu Genbao considered that Gao Lin had been too diligent since arriving at the base, training and studying every day, never seeing him laugh or play like a normal child. Although Xu Genbao was known for being strict, he also knew that if a child lost his innocence from a young age, it wouldn't be good for his growth, so he decided to give him an opportunity to leave the base and go out for a stroll, and if he could find some more talented players, that would be even better.
Xu Genbao, although from that era, had some conservative thoughts, but regarding Gao Lin directly poaching players from other football schools and even club teams, Coach Xu did not express opposition. After all, even those famous European youth training teams often poach good young players from other clubs' teams. In fact, historically, Xu Genbao brought Wu Ball Wang to Jiangsu in the same way...
It must be mentioned that the reason why Gao Jun is now in a hurry to help the base dig people, there is also a direct reason, that is Xu Genbao has decided to overthrow the original plan and advance the team to participate in the China League Two. Originally in Xu Genbao's plan, the team would participate in the China League Two until 2005 or even 2006, but after having Gao Jun this freak, in order not to delay this domestic unprecedented genius, Xu Genbao decided to advance the team to participate in the China League Two in the coming year, that is 2003.
For this, Xu Genbao streamlined the teams at all levels of the base. The original 87 age group and 88 age group were merged into one team, with a total of 25 people. The original 89 age group was also merged with the 90 age group, similarly compressed to 25 people. However, the later recruited 91 age group and 92 age group still formed separate teams, with many more people, and still adopted the old model.
This naturally makes those eliminated children very painful, but considering their future prospects, it may not be a bad thing. Under the current system of Chinese football, playing football will inevitably affect academic performance, especially after entering high school. If someone clearly has no football talent but insists on staying, they will neither become professional players nor support their families, and yet they will also miss out on education, which would be a huge loss...
Although the Xu guidance has already started preparing in advance, it is still very likely that the Chongming base team will encounter no small difficulties when participating in next year's B-level league. This is because even if a player born in 1987 was only 15 or 16 years old by 2003, and since most of the young players at the Chongming base are of real age, the actual gap is even greater. Football is after all a highly confrontational sport where physical quality is very important. A team of 15- or 16-year-old boys, no matter how good their technical awareness, would find it difficult to compete with tall and robust adult players. Moreover, apart from Gao Jun, the other young players do not have such a big advantage in terms of technique, with only a few being at the level of a weak team's main force in the A League (only referring to technique). This does not even take into account the huge gap in actual combat experience.
