Jiang Guangtai's fate seems to be very different from the crowd. Since the return of the national football team and the end of the isolation on November 18th last year, he has been staying in Guangzhou to take part in the 2nd phase of the Chinese Super League (CSL). The future of the Guangzhou club is a mystery, and so is the question of Jiang Guangtai's stay. In the midst of this chaos, Li Xiaopeng went to Guangzhou to discuss with him. Although the details are unknown, sources close to the matter revealed that Li Xiaopeng expressed his sincere retention of the player in a communication on December 31st last year, which had a significant effect. This heralds the naturalized defender is expected to fight with the national football team in the new phase of training, and go to Japan, Vietnam away campaign.
Since December 8, the national football team changed its manager, Li Xiaopeng has been running around many cities in China, especially in the professional league area, with the purpose of communicating with clubs about assistant coach candidates. According to Beijing Youth Daily reported on January 1, as of the New Year, the formation of Li Xiaopeng's team is nearly complete.
Two weeks ago, in Shanghai to participate in the national football preparations during the leadership group meeting, Li Xiaopeng has been based on the team's needs to screen out a huge list of candidates for assistant coach. After a few weeks of lobbying and communication, the candidates have been basically determined, only to be "leading group" approval, the National Football Association will announce the specific candidates.
It is reported, into the national football assistant coach team shortlist for different periods of the Chinese team's outstanding players, and currently in the Chinese Super League clubs hold important positions. They include Shao Jiayi, the current executive committee member of the National Football Association (NFA) who represented the national football team in the 2002 World Cup, Zhao Junzhe, the main player of the national football team in the 2002 World Cup and the current leader of the Guangzhou City team in the Chinese Super League as well as the head of the Chinese coaching team, Zheng Zhi, the current executive manager and head coach of the Guangzhou and Wuhan teams, and Li Jinyu, the former national football team's main goalkeeper and the current goalkeeper coach of the Wuhan team, Li Leilei, a former international footballer who played for Eindhoven FC in Holland, Sun Xiang, who now serves at Shanghai Harbor Club in the Chinese Super League.
Judging from the list of candidates, these candidates not only have rich experience as international players, but also have received systematic training for coaching qualification before and after retirement. What's more, they have accumulated rich experience in coaching or management positions, and have made remarkable progress in absorbing advanced soccer concepts and interpersonal communication.
Many of them have been guided by seniors in the same field or well-known foreign coaches, such as Zheng Zhi, although not retired, but for many years to follow Lippi, Scolari and other international first-class coaches to learn. Sun Xiang, Zhao Junzhe and so on also have a similar learning experience. It can be said that they bring a strong intellectual force for the national football assistant coaching team. It should be noted that some of the candidate coaches have not yet obtained professional-level coaching qualifications for various reasons, and their specific roles and titles in the national team in the future have yet to be officially finalized.
When Li Xiaopeng took over the news of the national football team, the new cycle of the national football coaching team of "Chinese and Western" strategy is also clear. Affected by the epidemic, Li Xiaopeng's favorite Spanish assistant coach Pep can not join in the short term. In this case, Li Xiaopeng and the "leading group" communication, decided to retain the original foreign coaches and team members of the national football team, including the Belgian technical director Kreis and his assistant Roy, physical fitness coach Adrian Lamb.
However, Lamb recently resigned from the NFF because his wife was ill and he needed to return to England to take care of his family. Under these circumstances, the NFF and Li Xiaopeng had to look for a replacement. It is in this context that Owen Wilk, the Brazilian fitness coach from Shenhua FC, was invited by the NFF.
In terms of the composition of Li Xiaopeng's team, this is a completely new combination. Although the candidate local assistant coaches are Li Xiaopeng player era or coaching period of close partners, but the national team coaching position and club management or coaching position is very different. The road to coaching the national team is a long and highly visible one. For Li Xiaopeng and his team members, in addition to hard work, but also the need for keen thinking ability and good psychological quality, in the complex and changing competition and public opinion environment to maintain rationality and sobriety, good emotional management. As for the final results of the work, but also need the test of time.
According to the plan, the national football team will gather in Shanghai on January 10, and then is expected to travel to Japan on January 23 for the match against Japan on the 27th.
