Chapter 19: The old man and the new coach of the national team

"At the European season awards ceremony held last night in Paris, France local time, our players had double happiness. Li Qingqing won the third place of the European season's best player and won the bronze ball trophy. Hu Lai won the best young man in Europe. The player’s "little golden ball". This pair of Chinese football "golden boys and girls" continues to write their own wonderful stories in European football..."
Following the announcement by the announcer, Li Qingqing, holding the Bronze Ball Award, appeared on the TV screen. She stood on the stage and was giving her acceptance speech in English:
"...This is a huge encouragement and reward for me personally. Thank the jury for their recognition of me, I will continue to work hard...Thank you my club, thank my teammates, and thank my dad, he is me The coach of football enlightenment, I am able to come to this day, it is entirely his credit..."
Xie Lan glanced at Hu Lixin next to him when he saw the subtitles typed under the news.
Hu Lixin got up and walked towards the kitchen at this time.
"Why didn't you watch it?" Xie Lan asked.
"I'm watching it forever? Didn't I watch the live broadcast yesterday?" When Hu Lixin was already standing in front of the kitchen stove, he turned on the cooker hood, and he couldn't hear the movement on the TV outside.
"You can watch famous scenes again..." In the living room, Xie Lan mumbled and continued to watch TV. "This is called a classic replay."
Then it was Hu Lai's turn to give a speech.
"...There are too many people to thank, so I won’t be a name here. In short, thank you everyone, thank you all those who support me, as a shooter, I am nothing without you... But here I want to thank one person in particular …"
Hearing her son say this, Xie Lan couldn't help but sit up straight.
In the picture, Hu Lai raised the trophy in his hand, and the English in his mouth also changed to Mandarin: "Dad, this trophy is for you. How is it? Your son didn't shame you, right? Ha!"
Hu Lai on the TV laughed, and Xie Lan in front of the TV also laughed, and then turned to look at the kitchen.
Hu Lixin was smoking a cigarette. In the kitchen where the light was not turned on, the red cigarette flashed and dimmed. When it lit up, his profile was red, and when it went dark, it merged into the darkness.
He couldn't see clearly his expression at this moment.
She still remembered watching the live broadcast, when Hu Lai suddenly said this, she looked at Hu Lixin unexpectedly, and saw her husband sullen and very serious. But in fact, I am very moved and happy, but I don’t show it on my face...
Xie Lan cursed with a smile: "Dead Tsundere!"
Then she lowered her head and took out her mobile phone to send a voice message to her son: "Son, you are going back to China this time to participate in the competition. By the way, bring the trophy back together?"
Not long after, she received a reply from Hu Lai: "Mom, the national team is not playing in Jincheng. If I bring it back, you won't be able to receive it... Don't worry, I have let Song Jiajia come back. Contact you."
"Okay. Oh, I have to trouble Song Fatwa'er every time, so embarrassed..."
"Then I will fight for less prizes next time?"
"Hi! How do you say it? Let him come to our house more and I will make him delicious!"
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On the Internet, the enthusiasm for Hu Lai and Li Qingqing to win the awards has not subsided. Hu Lai has returned to China and is preparing to participate in the next two national team warm-up matches.
In fact, what is going on at this time should be the qualifiers for the Asian Cup next year.
However, due to the reform of the Asian Cup qualifiers by the AFC, it is integrated with the Asian World Cup qualifiers-the twelve teams that have qualified for the Asian Cup qualifiers for the Asian Cup will automatically participate in this Asian Cup. qualifications.
If the Asian Cup hosts fail to reach the top 12, then 13 teams will automatically qualify for the Asian Cup at this stage-the top 12 teams plus a host.
Among the 28 remaining teams that did not qualify for the top 12 in the forty rounds, the four groups were second, the eighth groups were third, and the four best-performing groups were fourth, in total. Sixteen teams directly entered the Asian Cup qualifier group stage.
The last twelve teams are left in the top forty teams, and these twelve teams will pass two rounds of play-offs to determine the last eight places to participate in the qualifier group stage. Together with the previous 16 teams, a total of 24 teams are divided into six groups. Each group of four teams adopts a home and away double round-robin system, and the top two in each group advance to the Asian Cup.
If the host of the Asian Cup does not qualify for the top 12 and comes to participate in the qualifiers of this stage, the host will squeeze out the second place in the group with the worst score in this stage, and the latter will miss the Asian Cup. Race.
The twelve teams decided through the qualifiers and the twelve teams from the previous twelve World Cup qualifiers form 24 teams to participate in the Asian Cup.
The Asian Cup of this year will be held in Qatar in January next year. They have just hosted the World Cup and have hardware advantages. As soon as they came out and announced that they wanted to run, other competitors announced their withdrawal. So in the end Qatar won without a fight and won the right to host the 2027 Asian Cup.
Because the Chinese team has reached the top 12 in the Asian qualifiers of the 2026 World Cup in the United States and Canada, the Chinese team does not need to participate in the Asian Cup qualifiers.
They can directly participate in the race in January next year.
So on the national team match day, the Asian Cup qualifiers are in full swing, and they can only play friendly matches.
Of course, because of participating in the World Cup, and the performance in the World Cup is not bad-as the only team to remain unbeaten in this World Cup, if the Chinese team wants to play a friendly match, opponents are still easy to find.
It’s not like before, it’s really not easy to find someone with a high level of competence, and you have to spend money. Not to mention some teams, even if you spend money, you may not be able to smash it.
And now... after the World Cup is over, many national football associations have come to the door, hoping to discuss with the Chinese team about the friendly match.
In the end, the Chinese team finalized two friendly opponents, namely Slovakia from Eastern Europe and Mexico from Central and North America.
Needless to say, the strength of Mexico, which participated in the World Cup in the United States and Canada, has always been an important force in American football.
Although Slovakia did not participate in the World Cup, it is also a team that cannot be ignored. Many of the players in the team play in the five major European leagues. It can be said to be a high-quality friendly opponent.
Both games are played in China, but not in the same city.
After the World Cup, the Chinese team's reputation in the country has further increased. Fans in many cities hope that the national team can go to their city to play.
Therefore, the Football Association arranged the national team's warm-up match in two different places.
Of course, taking into account the factors of time and distance, not one is arranged in the northernmost Heihe Province, and the other is arranged in the southernmost Yuezhou Province.
But one in Jiu'an, the capital of Hexi Province, and one in Jingyang, the capital of Haining Province.
Although these two games were warm-up matches, all the overseas players returned to the team.
This is the first official appearance of the Chinese team after the World Cup, which is of great significance.
So even though it was a warm-up match, the Football Association also issued a call-up order for all overseas players.
The head coach who led the national team has also changed.
After Shi Wuyin's contract expired and he did not renew his contract with the national team, the Football Association began to choose the coach.
It's just that the process of selecting the handsome is not very smooth.
At present, the famous marshals who have enough reputation and ability in the international range are all working, and there are no idlers at home.
So the Football Association tried to find world-class coaches in China.
Rumors at the time-rumors, the Football Association and the parties have never admitted, everything is rumors-it is said that the Football Association first found the German Friedrich Lechmann who coached in the Lingnan South China Tigers, the coach once Coached the blue and white Munich, and led the team to win the Champions League, is a very competent head coach.
In order to hire him for coaching, the Lingnan South China Tigers spent a lot of money and offered the highest coaching salary in China, at a sky-high price.
But Lechman has no interest in coaching the Chinese team. After Marcel Wilson had finished his get out of class, the Football Association had looked for him, but he refused.
It's the same this time.
Two consecutive refusals seem to have broken the previous rumors that he was unwilling to coach the Chinese team because the level of the Chinese team was so poor that he did not look down on it...
After all, the Chinese team, which is unbeaten in the World Cup, shouldn't be too bad at all.
Of course, the above are all rumors and have not been confirmed by any party. Even football reporters in the circle did not mention this, all sources of caution are limited to various online rumors.
It is still a rumor that after being rejected by Lechman, the Chinese Football Association went to find the famous coach Jorge Dillon who coached at Dashun Golden Arrow.
This time Dillon did not refuse, but the two sides did not agree.
Finally, seeing the national team's game coming, still can't reach an agreement.
At this time, there were also voices on the Internet calling for opportunities for local head coaches.
After all, the first time the Chinese team scored in the World Cup was achieved by the local head coach Shi Wuyin, and his performance in leading the Chinese team in the World Cup is indeed not bad.
Since there is a successful precedent for Shi Wuyin, why can't you trust China's own head coach?
Someone made such an appeal on the Internet, and then aroused widespread concern and unanimous support.
The momentum is getting bigger and bigger.
So the Football Association began to set the goal of coach selection on the domestic coaches.
But unlike the fans with high national sentiment, the action of finding local coaches did not go very smoothly.
The competent local coaches are now coaching in the Super League and have contracts. If you want to coach the national team, you have to suspend the contract with the club. According to the contract, if the head coach proposes to terminate the contract in advance, the coach himself will have to pay the penalty. If the club proposes to release the contract, then the club must give liquidated damages. No one wants to put this money on anyone.
Of course, the two parties can also go through "friendly negotiation" and terminate the contract by agreement, and no one has to lose money.
But such a thing did not happen.
The local coaches coached by the Chinese Super League are relatively "cold" towards the position of the national team.
They are not as eager as the fans imagined, scrambling to become the helm of the "strongest national team in history".
After the World Cup, the national football's good reputation and prestige among the people does not seem to be useful for professional coaches.
In the end, the Football Association finalized the candidates only a week ago:
Dong Jianhai, the former head coach of Tamron, who is currently at home, has officially become the head coach of the Chinese team.
The 66-year-old Dong Jianhai is also a well-known domestic coach. He has coached the Olympic team and the national team successively, and has experience in coaching the national team. Although the final results were not satisfactory-neither coaching the Olympic team nor the national team was able to complete the task of breaking out of Asia. But in that dark age of Chinese football, the deeper reason why the national football team could not qualify is obviously not Dong Jianhai. It is indeed difficult for Dong Jianhai to lead Chinese football out of Asia to the world under such circumstances.
Switching to coaching at the club, Dong Jianhai proved that his coaching level is not a problem.
He has coached the Nanhe Shangdu Shenwei team twice, both of which took over the team halfway as a fire-fighting coach, and then succeeded in relegation at the end of the season.
As a head coach, his peak period was to lead the capital Tamron to win the Chinese Super League championship in the 2015 season. This is also the only league championship in the capital Tamron-before winning this championship, he coached the Chinese team to lose in the 2014 World Cup qualifiers in the Asian Forty Finals, failed to lead the team to the final ten finals, and was spurned by fans across the country.
With doubts, he became the coach of the capital Tamron and led the team to the Chinese Super League championship after three seasons. Shame before a snowfall.
Today's Dong Jianhai retired from the position of coach of the capital Tamron two years ago and is at home.
Because he has proven his coaching ability in the league and has experience in leading the national team, UU Reading www.uukanshu.com has become the most suitable candidate for the current football association to find the national team willing to coach.
However, the Football Association did not sign a long-term contract with Dong Jianhai, but a short-term contract valid until February next year.
In January next year, the Asian Cup will be kicked off in Qatar and will be finished in February.
The expiration time of this contract is so clear that it is obviously intended to use the Asian Cup to examine the current coaching ability of Dong Jianhai in the national team.
If you play well in the Asian Cup, then continue to sign, if you don’t play well... I’m afraid you will have to be smart at that time.
This is not to mention that the Chinese Football Association does not trust Dong Jianhai, but a very normal operation. After all, Dong Jianhai has been away from frontline coaching for two years. Signing a short-term contract also avoids the embarrassment that can't be shaken off at the end.
It's just that the duration of this contract still has a subtle sense of everything being unspoken.
Whether the Chinese team can continue the good performance of the Shi Wuyin era under the leadership of Dong Jianhai, the performance and results of these first two warm-up matches may be able to provide some reference.