html In the early morning of the 119th, in the Group A event of the U20 Asian Cup qualifiers, the Chinese U19 National Youth Team lost 0-1 to the Saudi team at home, but 2 wins and 1 loss in the group stage, relying on the advantage of goal difference, the group with the best performance advances to the final circle.
In fact, I haven't watched the U20 Chinese team for a long time and am not very familiar with this team. I couldn't sleep in the early morning and felt very frustrated. Facing the Saudi team who is playing in a row, our young players are really behind in all directions. Even except for the three Xinjiang players in the frontcourt, no one else may not attack.
I would like to ask, for , the Chinese Super League , and the Chinese League One, what is the U23 policy of protecting and cultivating young players?
01 Policy Origin
U23 Policy has been around for 5 years, what is the use of it? To answer this question, we have to go back to the time it originated.
We have to go back to 2016. On Rio Olympics , the Chinese delegation's performance was not ideal at the time. The superiors gave performance indicators for each event, and the instructions to Chinese football were that it was necessary to make breakthroughs in influential events.
At that time, the wave of gold and dollar football was still quite surging, especially Guangzhou Evergrande won the AFC Champions League in 2013 and 2015; the national team was reborn at the extreme and returned to the top 12 games after 15 years. These gratifying changes have given many people a dose of heart attack and a psychedelic drug.
It seems that under the leadership of strong aids + famous coaches, our players can also improve their level and play high-quality games.
, and the results of youth teams of all ages were terrible that year:
html In November, , the 93 National Olympic Team led by Fu Bo , was eliminated in the group with three consecutive losses in the U23 Asian Cup; in October, the Asian Youth Championship, , and , Li Ming , 97 National Youth Team led by Li Ming , only 1 point or 0 goals in the group were eliminated in the group.
It is an indisputable fact that young players are useless. Many national head coaches have also complained on different occasions that there are no one available and that young players can't play in the league in too few games. The problem of
has been raised, so it must be solved.
Consider the problem based on simple linear thinking : Since we can’t play in the league, can we just formulate policies to let young players play? Young people are not good at their level, wouldn’t it be better to carry foreign players? Gao Lin is so old, he is mixed with big-name foreign players, and he is influenced by them every day, and follows them like this. Isn’t it the older he gets more and more demonic!
So, the U23 policy came into being before the start of the 2017 season.
The fundamental purpose of the U23 policy is to use the league to cultivate more instant combat power and feed back to the national team. However, policy makers have failed to analyze and judge the actual situation. They may not have thought about the young players of those generations, who has the strength of that player of Gao Lin, and how many of them have the ability to gain this policy dividend?
02 Three stories
I am a Henan fan. I feel that the three young players in Henan are very representative. After reading their stories, we can comment on the U23 policy.
Story 1:
In 2016, the 20-year-old central defender Li Xiaoming made his mark in the Central Plains, grew up quickly under the guidance of Jia Xiuquan , and became one of the three main central defenders of Henan team.
In the fifth round of the league, Jianye's away challenge to Guangzhou Evergrande, Li Xiaoming became the first post-96 player in the Chinese Super League to play the whole game for 90 minutes. Beside foreign players Gomez and McGerwen, Li Xiaoming did not have much worries. He could bravely grab and make up for the position on a large scale. He could enter the top 10 in the same position in five statistics: successful average top score, interception per game, clearance per game, offside per game and goals at the same position. With his outstanding performance, he quickly became the main rotation force of Jianye. He also served as the captain of the national youth team, and was in the limelight.
As for his achievements that year, he did surpass the famous family Gao Zhunyi and was the leading young defender at that time. When he was interviewed, he said that he never expected to beat Gao Zhunyi and become the best newcomer in the Chinese Super League.
017, Li Xiaoming returned to Shanghai Shenhua . At that time, the U23 policy had already begun to be implemented, but the team weighed the pros and cons and did not use young players on the defense line, but instead loaned Li Xiaoming to the China League One team to level up.
So far, he lost the opportunity to play in the top league at the age when he should be the most important. He left Henan's three-center-back system and lost the protection of foreign aid central defenders. He could no longer find his previous state.
Story 2:
After Li Xiaoming left Zhengzhou, another young defender occupied the starting U23 spot in Henan team - Long Cheng . He also benefited from the support of Jianye's defensive system and the courage of young players, and he got 13 league appearances in the 2015 season.
also grew rapidly under the careful guidance of Jia Xiuquan. His steals, interceptions and rescues were outstanding. In the 2017 season, he won the trust of many coaches and started 25 times for the Henan team. With the two big brothers Gomez and Gu Cao, his mature performance was eye-catching.
When everyone thought that Long Cheng would become the new core of Henan Jianye’s defense, he insisted on leaving the team for a high salary. After breaking up with the club, he joined Jiangsu Suning , but he failed to find his position in a strong team. Instead, his own loopholes were constantly exposed. He made low-level mistakes in key battles during his time at Hangzhou Greentown, and he was in a slump.
Story 3:
Hu Jinghang also won the best newcomer in the Chinese Super League after playing for the Henan team on loan.
is different from the two young defenders before. Hu Jinghang's talent has been fully demonstrated since he was a child. He was called " Wu Lei II " when he was a teenager. He completed his debut in the Chinese Super League and the Asian Champions League at the age of 19. However, Shanghai SIPG was full of talents at that time, and its forward position was firmly controlled by foreign players and Wu Lei . There were not many opportunities in Lu Wenjun , let alone Hu Jinghang.
So, 20-year-old Hu Jinghang joined Henan on loan, which has the tradition of promoting young players and the helplessness of the striker.
Henan's signing was not ideal at that time, and Basogo on the attack line was unable to support it. The talented Hu Jinghang was undoubtedly a powerful supplement to the Central Plains Army. He could hit and play in the midfield. He made 25 starts in Henan 27 appearances and started 25 times, contributing 3 goals and 4 assists. It can be said that even without the U23 policy, Hu Jinghang could still gain a foothold in the Central Plains Army at that time.
Even if he is so outstanding, he still finds it difficult to seize the opportunity from Hulke , Oscar , Exon , and Wu Lei. Although he made 17 appearances in the season he returned, he averaged only 21.7 minutes per game, which made Hu Jinghang a little unacceptable.
In order to let Xiao Hu play in the game, Shanghai SIPG re-loaned him to Henan Jianye in the second transfer in the summer window. But unlike half a year ago, at this time, Ivo returned, Karanga joined, Waz-te was in a hot state, and coupled with the indispensable Basogo , the Henan team's attack line was also monopolized by foreign players.
Hu Jinghang completely felt the bitterness and helplessness of competing for opportunities with foreign players. This time the memory of Zhengzhou is not beautiful.
It is worth mentioning that Xiao Hu, who returned to , Shanghai SIPG , who returned in the 2019 season, still seized the limited playing time and scored 3 goals and 1 assist, showing his strength, and laying the foundation for himself to stay in the Chinese Super League.
At present, high-level foreign aid has receded. Hu Jinghang has firmly positioned as the main striker of Wuhan Yangtze River. I believe that with his strength, he can follow the team to achieve good results this season.
03 The leap in the tube
Li Xiaoming's position is due to specific tactical arrangements, a lot of game time guarantees, the careful teaching of the head coach, and the passing and helping of foreign aid central defenders. This is actually a common law for cultivating young players. Li Xiaoming suffered a loss and failed to grow up for a long time in this environment. His success was to respect the objective laws of football, not the protection of the U23 policy.
Long Cheng's opened high and closed low and has a great relationship with the U23 policy. He took over the policy dividends with his own reasons and external factors, and took this opportunity to quickly improve his strength. However, due to the lack of high-level U23 players in the Chinese Super League, the value of such players naturally increased. The temptation of high income and large platforms made Long Cheng make his own choice, which eventually disrupted the road to growth.
Hu Jinghang is another situation. He is a talented player and can get a chance to play without the U23 policy. His displaced years are entirely because he cannot compete for foreign players. Therefore, the U23 policy supports him in fact very limited.
Through the stories of these three players of Henan team, we can see the essence through the phenomenon. The U23 policy has not actually achieved its goal.
Perhaps, on the surface, it allows some young players to get more opportunities for the game, but players who are not strong will still lose opportunities at the age of 24. Young players who are already strong can actually make a name for themselves without relying on the U23 policy. From the perspective of the national team, the performance of national youth at all levels has not improved significantly in the past few years of implementation, and it has even become more and more terrible.
04 This is not the answer
U23 policy is not effective, it is just a microcosm of the weakness of Chinese football.
As we all know, the transition between the national system and the market system of Chinese football has not been smooth, especially in the training of young players. In addition, Chinese football has been rampant in fake gambling, and fewer and fewer children are willing to play football, and finally fewer and fewer professional players are eventually becoming pitifully.
Therefore, players in the mid-to-late 1990s were not as good as their predecessors. In this way, all teams are unwilling to take the risk of using young players. In the era of Jinyuan football, the ability of foreign players has generally improved. The Chinese Super League originally looked at the "foreign aid offensive group VS domestic midfield and backcourt". Each team will not use young players to attack cities and villages, and is also afraid that they will stand in an important position on the defense line. Therefore, it has become a consensus among everyone to grasp policy loopholes to minimize the playing time of U23 as much as possible.
As Jia Xiuquan said: "Youth is not an excuse to lose. I will win the best in Asia at the age of 21." Those who can make their mark when they are young do not need policy support. Players who are not strong enough will have to be beaten back to their original form at the age of 24.
This season Zhang Yuning , Huang Zichang , Tong Lei and other "super-age players" who performed well actually did not need policy protection last season; Dai Weijun , Zhu Chenjie and other U23 players who play the main force by relying on their strength have little to do with the policy...
attempt to use a "stress response" policy to solve a systemic problem that has arisen for a long time, and the result is destined to be a tragedy. :
