Starting from the third day of the first lunar month, the U20 Chinese Women's Football Team, the U17 Chinese Women's Football Team, and the U16 Chinese Men's Football Team, three "small national-brand" teams, have started training at the Kunming Haigeng Base, Suzhou Taihu Base, and Xianghe National Training Base respectively during the "Spring Festival Short Holiday." For the reserve force responsible for improving Chinese football's performance in foreign games as soon as possible, they are more like time managers on the calendar, urging national teams at all levels to show a new look that is different from previous years in the Year of the Dragon.
The U20 women's football team will take the first shot in the Year of the Dragon foreign war for China's national football team: On February 20, the U20 women's football team ended its physical training at the Kunming Haigeng base and moved to the Chengdu Wenjiang base for technical and tactical drills. The whole team will depart for Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, on February 28 to compete in the 2024 U20 Women's Asian Cup finals. At 16:00 on March 4, Beijing time, the U20 women's football team will face the first opponent in the group stage, the North Korean U20 women's football team.
Compared with teams in the youth training system that had frequent changes in training personnel in the past, the U20 women's football team that has been gradually "upgraded" has always remained relatively stable regardless of the coaching staff, players, or main lineup. This is an important reason why the performance of the U20 women's football team has avoided ups and downs in the past year. In the 6 Asian Cup qualifiers in two phases in 2023, the Chinese U20 women's football team won 6 consecutive games, scoring 31 goals and conceding 0 goals. In December, they played two warm-up matches with the Australian U20 women's football team. They lost 1:3 in the first game and won 3:1 in the second game. In a warm-up match with the South Korean U20 women's football team in January this year, the team drew 1:1 with a goal in stoppage time. The team's mentality and technical and tactical abilities were constantly tested in actual combat.
"Overall transformation", "frontcourt pressure", "partial cooperation" and "three-dimensional attack" are the tactical guiding principles of the Mesozoic Era head coach Wang Jun for many years. Compared with the rapid development of women's football in the world today, China's "Little Rose" has a big gap in both "physical confrontation" and "quick decision-making" abilities. Only by adapting to high-intensity and fast-paced games can it keep up with the world's women's football. pace of development.
The U20 Women’s Football Asian Cup is the best yardstick to test the quality of the Chinese women’s football team’s “Little Rose”. There are a total of 8 teams in the finals of this U20 Women's Asian Cup. As the third team, the Chinese U20 Women's Football Team is in Group B with the U20 Women's Football Team of Japan, North Korea, and Vietnam. According to the competition format, two qualifying teams from each group will advance to the semi-finals and qualify for this year's U20 Women's World Cup in Colombia.
Japan's U20 women's football team and North Korea's U20 women's football team have the same characteristics of abundant physical fitness. The difference is that the Japanese team has exquisite skills and sufficient field control ability, while the North Korean team has strong impact and tough style. If the Chinese U20 women's football team wants to qualify from the group, they need to score at least points in the first match against the North Korean women's football team and the second match against the Japanese women's football team (19:00 on March 7).
The last time the Chinese women's football team participated in the U20 World Cup was in 2018. The current international players Zhang Linyan, Shen Mengyu, Chen Qiaozhu, Wang Linlin, and Dou Jiaxing were all the main players that year. In other words, the two head-to-head contests of this U20 Asian Cup will give clear guidance to the trend of the Chinese women's football team in the future. After all, after losing the qualification to participate in this year's Paris Olympics, the Chinese women's football adult team will have no major competitions in the next two years. Kick.
The U17 women's football team, which is "smaller" than the U20 women's football team, faces equally difficult challenges in the Year of the Dragon: On April 7, the 2024 U17 women's football Asian Cup will be held in Indonesia. Players from Indonesia, China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Australia, The eight U17 women's football teams from Thailand and the Philippines are divided into two groups to compete. The draw ceremony has not yet been carried out. In the end, the top three teams will qualify for the Dominican Republic U17 Women's World Cup.
The Chinese Football Association announced on January 25 that Australian Gary van Egmond will be the head coach of the Chinese U17 women's football team. Van Egmond "enlisted" to lead the U17 national girls' football team to participate in the first stage of this year's women's national championship to experience the actual combat atmosphere. (In the same group with three strong teams, Shandong Sports Lottery, Zhejiang Hangzhou, and Changchun Volkswagen), and will continue to lead the team to participate in the second phase of the Women's Football Championship after the end of this Suzhou training camp (March 10) to gain experience.
In view of the away challenge to the Singapore team on March 21, the national football team is currently in a turbulent period of coaching changes, and the National Olympic team (which is in the same group as Japan, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates) will compete in the Qatar U23 Asian Cup on April 15. Achieving breakthroughs in foreign war performance at the level, the two "little roses" of the U20 women's football team and the U17 women's football team naturally shoulder the important task of letting fans see the Chinese women's football team "flying and dancing" - for the depressed and stuffy Chinese football, opening the window of hope and breathing fresh air Air is a rare new atmosphere.
This newspaper, Beijing, February 19th
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Guo Jian Source: China Youth Daily