As April 20 approaches, the flames of the 2021 Chinese Super League season will be lit in Guangzhou and Suzhou. Beijing Guoan, the powerhouse team assigned to the Suzhou division, returned to Shanghai on March 30 to prepare for the upcoming season's sprint.
Facing the new head coach Bilic, the team's two foreign cores, Bakambu and Bieira, have been released from quarantine and will return to the team soon. However, their physical condition is not yet up to the standard of practicing with the team.
The results of Rico's training are shown through a post-training selfie.
A meeting of CFA officials on April 1 revealed that due to the withdrawal of last season's league champions Jiangsu, third-place finisher Guoan and runner-up Guangzhou have been seeded in the two major divisions for the new season. Guoan will be seeded in the Suzhou division along with Shanghai Harbor, Shanghai Shenhua, Hebei, Tianjin Jinmen Tigers, Dalian Ren, Wuhan and Changchun Yatai.
With the opening of the new league season just around the corner, the time left for Bilic to adjust the lineup is tight. Fortunately, through the two stages of training in Haikou and Shanghai, Bilic has an in-depth understanding of the team's existing players, and gradually established a new lineup and tactical system based on domestic players through daily training and teaching matches.
Recently, the two center forward core foreign aid Bieira and Bakambu lifted the isolation and arrived in Shanghai to join the team. This is undoubtedly a good news for Bilic to build tactics. However, given that the two have not been systematic training for a long time, the body and physical condition is not good, it is difficult to keep up with the intensity of the team's training in the short term. However, they still have nearly 20 days to strengthen their physical fitness, and I believe that the two will be able to regain their form and integrate into the team before the start of the league.
It is worth mentioning that Brazilian midfielder Lucas Sousa, who was previously rumored to be with Guoan, also arrived in Shanghai recently. However, Guoan club has not yet released an official statement on his joining. Sosa, who played for Changchun Yatai, knows the Chinese Super League like the back of his hand, and is a midfielder who can play both offense and defense. Although his individual skills are lacking compared to Augusto and Bieira, he has a clear advantage in terms of physical strength. Perhaps his addition can help Guoan's team show the aggressiveness that Bilic is looking for.
