Yen Shih-kai at the helm of the women's soccer team to help Taiwan's women's soccer team move to the top of Asia!"

Today's meeting with Coach Yan came just after an intense training session for the women's soccer team. Despite a full schedule, he was still in high spirits and talked about the excitement of being at the helm of the national team for the third time. Coach Yan said, "Each time is a new mission and mindset for me, and the environment is changing, but the one thing that remains the same in all three phases is the idea of making Taiwan's women's soccer team stand shoulder to shoulder with Asian powerhouses and even the international stage, and that philosophy remains unchanged."

Talking about the first time he took charge of the Chinese women's soccer team, Coach Yan admitted that he was still inexperienced at that time: "The first time I was involved in the international tournament, the overall experience is not enough, and to be able to participate in the international tournament is also a sharpening of the coaching.2018 got up to speed very quickly, and I've always been in the environment, and I have a relatively good understanding of the players."

During the conversation, Coach Yan also spoke highly of the talent of the Japanese coaches, mentioning, "When we encountered a bottleneck in leading the team for the first time, we felt that the Japanese coaches exceeded us in terms of their international vision and technical and tactical level, so we let go of more experienced foreign coaches to coach the team."

Coach Yan emphasized, "It felt like we almost caught up with the Asian countries at that point, and Coach Yanagi did a great job in 3 years, and the overall strength was improving, and then Coach Horino, and the series came down to a series of philosophies that didn't differ too much from the ones we were trying to foster, so I was able to connect those philosophies pretty quickly when I took over as well."

(Su Yuxuan scores a goal in the Women's Asian Cup. (Photo credit: Chinese Football Association)

**Adjustment of strategy, CWC needs to strengthen the sense of mission and linkage among the defense players***

In the Asian Cup earlier this year, a number of players were diagnosed to be unable to participate due to the epidemic, but all the players still fought hard and achieved good results. Despite the final ranking of 6th, not qualified for the top 5 to directly qualify for the Women's International Cup, failing to achieve the set target, the coach of Echigo also left the team and returned to Japan as promised.

After the stage is over, the Chinese Women's Football Team's dream of playing in the International Cup is still alive, with one more chance to play in the Intercontinental Play-offs of the 10 Grab 3 International Cup early next year. Mr. Yan, who took over the coaching of the Women's National Team again, also made adjustments to the team's deficiencies in the Asian Cup. He said: "We have enough number of defenders, but not clear in the individual mission, each person should do their own job, but also can complement each other, the defense focus on mutual coordination and complementary, Japan and South Korea are teams with group cooperation characteristics, our country in addition to group cooperation, physical quality is also the best of the three teams, so mutual joint defense and linkage is very important, not that the people swing more than they can hold! The team's defense is not as good as the team's defense. Asian Cup above looks like our defense linkage is not there."

(Coach Yan Shikai guiding the team. (Photo credit: Chinese Football Association)

In addition to giving clearer instructions to the players in training, soccer is a team sport and the communication of the players on the field is also very important. Coach Yan believes that this is also a weak point of the Chinese women's soccer team: "This group of players on the field communication is not good enough, sometimes out of position need to support each other through the voice communication, so I ask them to make a sound, otherwise the mission is not clear, we all go backward, there is always someone who has to go first to block the first wave, so that the back of the people to judge when they can intercept and make up for the position."

However, communication is one thing, 11 people on the field will have 11 ideas and if we don't all think alike it can be difficult to achieve wholeness. That's why most teams will rely on one player to take on the role of shouting on the field, and this player could be the midfield brain, the center back, or the goalkeeper who overviews the entire field. In Coach Yan's tactical thinking, this player responsible for passing on information and directing scheduling is the center back.

(Su Yuxuan. (Photo credit: CFF)

"I hope it's by the center back, this group of girls are very good, soft and gentle, the coach says what to do, in the training process I just put the concept in, but soccer is a lot of changes, full of clinical changes, it is impossible to follow your script, these changes need to be inside the players to solve the problem, such talent is also our poorer, no one to speak on the field, the Coach shouting from the side has been too slow." Coach Yan so said.

In addition to defense, soccer matches need to be scored in order to win. In the Asian Cup, no matter which team the Chinese Women's Soccer Team faced, winning or losing, the time of possession was less than the opponent in most of the matches, so defensive counterattack can be said to be the main tactic of the coach. Coach Yan hopes to improve the ball possession rate, he said that the Asian Cup possession rate is only 35%, in the defense to attack, if you can get the ball back to control, you can re-do the tactics, with more control of the ball, I hope that regardless of the strength of the opponents, the Chinese team can reach 40% of the ball possession rate.

In the upcoming East Asia Championship, the strength of China, Japan and South Korea is well known in women's soccer in Asia and is much higher than the strength of the Chinese women's soccer team at this stage. In the past, the Chinese women's soccer team participated in the East Asia Football Championship and lost, objectively looking at the East Asia Football Championship to strive for success is not the goal that the Chinese women's soccer team should be set at this time.