Today, October 29th, CCTV Sports Channel's Football Night program started with an interview with Shao Jiayi, the leader of China's U20 national team. Shao shared his insights on the upcoming U21 League and the much-anticipated U20 Asian Cup grouping.
Talking about the upcoming FA U21 League, Shao emphasized, "For these young players, this is a crucial stage of growth, and it's not easy for the Association to provide them with such a platform in the context of the epidemic, and it's a crucial tournament."
Then, Shao added: "For the young players, there is not a big gap between them, whether it is the Chinese Super League U21 team or the Chinese First Division U21 team, I believe that their level is extremely high and very close. The fact that they can participate in such competitions will undoubtedly contribute better to their growth as well as get more opportunities to play."
When evaluating the ability of the U21 players, Shao Jiayi said: "In my opinion, most of the players have the level and potential to enter the professional league. As a matter of fact, many teams in the Chinese Super League this year are dominated by young players, so I don't think there's any problem with the age of these U21 players, and strength-wise, as long as they have more high-level matches and high-level training, it shouldn't be a problem for them to move on to the professional game in the future."
Looking back to the U20 Asian Cup qualifiers in September, our team successfully advanced to the final round with a record of 2 wins and 1 loss. Not long ago, the U20 Asian Cup group draw results were announced, our team with Saudi Arabia, Japan and Kyrgyzstan in the "group of death". In the face of this challenge, Shao Jiayi said that the primary goal is to strive to get out of the group. He said frankly: "U20 Asian Cup in the top 16 teams have no weak team, each team is very strong, the draw results in our expectations. Saudi Arabia and Japan are one of the top teams in Asia and we will definitely give our best to play our own game. The direction of our preparation is clearer after the draw results." (DD)
