Korea is trash. Switzerland is better in all areas. Maybe in 50 years Korea catch up. Any Americano team trashes Korea anytime they meet, even USA.
Guangzhou Evergrande promotes 16 year old winger Zhang Aokai from the academy straight into the first team. He's the first youth player from Evergrande Football School to be in the first team.
Some rumors going around that Hebei tried to sign Lin Liangming (youth player at Real Madrid) for a retarded 7M euro. Any other instance I would say it's just a silly rumor and no way true, but given recent events I don't doubt Hebei would do something retarded like this. ******** them, and ******** this new money honestly. These kids have the chance of a lifetime to learn from the best coaches in the world, and to lure them with this kind of money to sit on the bench like Xu Xin makes me angry. Even if they can't make it at the likes of Real or Atletico, they could have at least had a chance at other teams in Europe. Last thing we need is more promising players rotting in the CSL. I don't doubt some CSL team is trying to lure Zhang Yuning back too with some insane amount of $. The short-sightedness of just throwing money at the problem is going to be counterproductive to developing the our next generation of player, most of whom are already priced hundreds of times higher than their actual value.
Rumors say that Real Madrid rejected 7 million euros and 10 million euros for Lin from Hebei China Fortune. Hebei's response:
Wu Lei becomes the first Chinese player in the CSL to 20 goals (in all competitions) since Li Jinyu and Zheng Zhi in 2006. 31 games, 20 goals, 13 assists. Should try to transfer to a decent European side next season.
Where do you think he can fit. The possibility of him going to Europe was discussed a couple years ago but nothing happened. I don't even know if he wants to go.
From an objective point of view I don´t think there´s much reason for him to move abroad. He´s already 25 and I doubt he will grow much more as a player. At SIPG he´s the star player and will be for a couple more years, while being pretty much guaranteed a place in the NT. Why risk it by moving abroad and potentially waste a year on the bench/reserves. I don´t know how high his salary is but I doubt a foreign team would offer him a higher one than he has now, while also having to deal with adapting to another culture and language etc. Obviously as a fan it would be nice to see him move and succeed in Europe, but realistically I don´t see much point in it for him.
China needs to strengthen its domestic local league and build a strong brand. It needs to have well recognized local talent and I think Wu Lei fits the bill. Sure, the country needs some guys playing overseas, but domestic talent should mesh with them too.
I think there's always room to grow as a player, especially tactically. I'm not saying our players are close to being world beaters but generally we're pretty decent technically like many Asian sides, and we always have been. What's stopping our NT from becoming the upper echelon in Asia in my opinion is the lack of tactical astuteness due to the lack of quality youth coaching for this current generation and the lack of quality competition here. Muscle memory is something that you can say won't develop past a certain age, especially for professionals who have done the same thing for 20 years, you can't change habits suddenly after that. Tactical thinking is all mental, and I think can be learned throughout your career. This is why the "experience" matters. I would argue that players like Shao Jiayi, Zheng Zhi, Hao Junmin, and Sun Xiang all came back from their foreign adventures as better players than they were when they left. Even though players like Wu Lei and Zhang Linpeng may have peaked in their physical skillsets, I think learning first hand attacking and defensive tactics in a much more competitive environment cannot be a bad thing. Why defend in a more advanced system when CSL offenses can't break down Guangzhou? Why attack with anything other than direct/diagonal balls if Wu Lei can just blaze past 90% of defenders? We can see this deficiency when we watch the NT play, as they're clueless when Wu Lei's pace is not sufficient to break better defenders. I don't disagree with the need to improve the CSL through local talent though, but keeping individual players won't change the trajectory of the CSL.
Your last statement is important. It is key to create a balancing act between a healthy domestic and having players play abroad. Brazil is an extreme example where their local league is hollowed out
That's an ideal situation but if anything the CSL is heading in the opposite direction, and has been for some time. I think a healthy league is necessary if only for the presence of teams with good infrastructure and the ability to support the play time of local players. The fact that CSL has had this massive influx in money that is leading to us buying superstars is detracting from that. We're creating financially unstable teams that are top-heavy in skill level and pay structure, and in the business of winning that causes tactics to revolve around these foreign stars rather than utilizing the full strengths of the team and the burgeoning youth setups. I don't think we can compare the situation in China to Brazil because we have very different domestic situations with different cultural upbringings in football. I would compare to the USA, or perhaps even Japan, as these are nations where football competes with numerous other sports for children's time. We are obviously trying to emulate the Japanese youth system in many ways which has proven successful in getting kids to play dedicated amounts of football from a young age, with a prescribed national style/doctrine assigned by the national program. However, the main difference between us and Japan or the USA I think is the lack of a strong intermediate amateur level, where the USA has a strong and more importantly organized collegiate system (though some detractors would say otherwise), and Japan has one of the most competitive high-school academy systems anywhere. We really lack the infrastructure at the grassroots/provincial levels to identify talent that was missed at the early stages. We also lack the incentive for these kids to keep playing because of a dearth of affordable schools and academies to join, and other socioeconomic factors that are unique to China. I think this can be at least partially addressed by having Chinese role models in the CSL, but even more so by having Chinese role models successfully playing overseas.
Chinese clubs need to take youth development seriously. Cannot let soccer go the way of Basketball (example of a screwed up sport)
Shanghai SIPG tied 0-0 against Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors in the home leg of the AFC CL semifinals. The second leg will be played on September 13.
The club's owners are Shanghai International Port Group (SIPG). When they took over, they changed the name to Shanghai SIPG.
Shandong Luneng lost 3-1 to FC Seoul in the away leg of the AFC CL semifinals. The second leg will be played on September 14.
I've always thought Shanghai International FC would have been a great name to rename the club. I know the name was previously used by another team during a dark period in Chinese football but they're not using it anymore and it's still a cool name.
8 Billion Yuan (roughly 1.2 Billion US Dollars) over 5 years starting at the beginning of the of the 2016 season. https://wildeastfootball.net/2015/0...break-the-bank-but-will-it-make-a-difference/
Shanghai SIPG lost 5-0 against Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors in the second leg of the *quarterfinals. A decent run considering it was their first time in the AFC CL.