Chapter 66: Gains and Losses
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When the national youth team suddenly changed its head coach, and this new head coach did not recruit Gao Jun into the team in his first training session after taking office, Gao Jun directly felt the emotions of those disciples that year. Because he had treated the big players in the team like this before, Gao Jun was very clear that a strong head coach would not like to have an indispensable core player or a particularly close-knit group within the team when they took office, as this would weaken the head coach's authority and affect the team's execution of their tactical ideas.
Furthermore, there is another equally deadly problem. If the team achieves results, who deserves the most credit, the head coach or that core player? Take a simple example, all fans know Maradona's magical performance in the 1986 World Cup, but how many people know who was the head coach of Argentina at that time?
It's worth mentioning that the original head coach of the national youth team, Liu Chunming, was demoted to a lower position, which is also related to this. Gao Jun's performance was too dazzling, and it made everyone neglect his existence as the head coach. At this time, the Chinese Football Association and the German Football Association launched a series of cooperation, so Krautzun, recommended by the German Football Association, became the new head coach of the national youth team, just like in history. Of course, Liu Chunming personally did not lose out, the achievements he made in the World Youth Championship and the Toulon Cup were enough for him to be promoted.
To be objective, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar is an excellent coach, whether he was coaching the first team or the youth team, he has shown a very high level of coaching. However, from his past conflicts with Xiao Dong, it can be seen that he still has a strong personality, which makes Gao Jun inevitably worried. More importantly, this national youth team has placed too much hope on Gao Jun, so it's inevitable that he will be somewhat anxious, otherwise, as someone who has become the core of the national team's frontcourt, why would he need to care about being selected for a national youth team that is two levels lower?
Fortunately, the Chinese Football Association did its job at this time. When Gao Jun received the notice to report to the national team, a CFA official specially explained the situation to him, telling him that Krautz's reason for not summoning him and Yu Hai to participate in the national youth team's training and warm-up matches was because their strength was enough to secure a main position, no need for special examination. Moreover, this year, the two had heavy tasks in the national team and Dongfang team's games, so he tried to reduce the number of call-ups as much as possible. Gao Jun thought about it and felt that it made sense. The first match of the National Football Team's top eight tournament was on February 9th, and before that, there was this month-long training session. Dongfang team had official matches starting from early March due to their AFC Champions League task, so when would they have time to participate in the national youth team's training and warm-up matches?
Gao Lin, who has shed his burden, showed a good competitive state in the national football team's training session, which made head coach Ali Han slightly relieved. However, even so, for the first match of the quarterfinals, his strategy is still to secure a draw and strive for a win, because the Chinese team will be challenging their long-time nemesis Iran on away soil, and Iran's home stadium is notoriously known as the "devil's den" in Asia. Even if China only manages a draw, it would already be enough to satisfy domestic fans...
Although so, Ali Han still won't let the team shrink and defend, because he is a Dutchman who advocates for offense in his bones. Hui Jianmin, who returned from Germany, became the biggest surprise in this training session, making him more confident.
Actually, Xiao Hui was able to become the main right winger of the national football team to a large extent because veteran Li Ming retired and he had a good tacit understanding with Gao Jun, not that his ability had reached the level of Li Ming at that time. During the Asian Cup, although Xiao Hui's attacking ability was already among the best in the domestic wingers, his poor defense and insufficient physical fitness to play a full game in high-intensity matches were far from satisfying for Alireza Mansourian.
But in Magath's hellish winter training, Hao Haidong showed the typical East Asian perseverance and obedience, completing the training content that made those Bayern stars complain, although the aftertaste made him turn pale every time he thought about it, but the return was also very huge. Now it has been only half a year since the end of the Asian Cup, and Hao Haidong, who used to run 7-8 kilometers per game and get cramps, now has a good physical condition with an average running distance of nearly 10,000 meters per game; although his defensive ability is still not comparable to Yu Hai's balanced offense and defense, he can barely play as a right midfielder rather than just a winger. With Sun Jiehui, who is good at defense, playing as the right back for the national team, Ali Han's concern about the right flank defense has been alleviated...
Due to the Chinese national team's numerous past defeats at the hands of Iran, including never having even managed a draw away from home, many Chinese fans, especially those who have been following football since the 1990s, lack confidence in the first away match. However, some young new fans are full of confidence that China will get points on the road, after all, this national team is the newly crowned Asian champion, and just over half a year ago they had beaten Iran so badly at home that the Iranians were left "picking up their teeth", but they have forgotten about the referee's bias and Iran's bad luck in that match...
After the match began, Iran showed its true strength as a top Asian team in front of more than 100,000 enthusiastic spectators at Tehran's Azadi Stadium. From the performance on the field, China and Iran are not even on the same level. The game has been going on for twenty minutes, and Gao Lin hasn't received the ball once, which is an unprecedented embarrassment since he became a key player in the national team.
The current head coach of the Iranian team is Croatian Ivan Kova?i?, although he was later coaching Shandong Luneng and ended up with a disappointing result, mainly due to some non-football reasons, his ability is actually not bad. More importantly, today's Gao Lin is no longer an unknown player who was neglected by everyone at that time, the head coaches of Asian powerhouses have conducted in-depth studies on his characteristics.
Ivankovic's conclusion is that for a shooter like Gao Jun who has such a fast start-up speed, it is impossible to assign one person to mark him, and if multiple people are assigned, it will have too much impact on the team's offense and defense. Therefore, his countermeasure is not to assign a special person to defend against Gao Jun, but to fully utilize Iran's fierce pressing advantage, striving to completely restrict the few players who can pass the ball to Gao Jun, so that no matter how powerful Gao Jun's shot is, he won't be able to play it out.
