Chapter 291 National Olympic Training, are all my teammates my fans? After receiving the call-up from the National Olympic Team, players playing locally and overseas players who returned to China after the winter break, reported to the assembly point one after another before January 1. After all the members arrived, under the leadership of the team leader, at 1:7 am on January 39, the entire National Olympic team of people boarded a flight to Frankfurt, Germany. After arriving in Frankfurt, head coach Krauchen rushed to the airport to meet up with the players, then transferred from Frankfurt to Nice, France, and then took a bus from Nice to Marseille, the first stop of this training camp. After a lot of trouble, the players finally arrived at the hotel where they were staying. This trip was quite arduous. We took both planes and buses and it took more than 20 hours in total. Everyone was exhausted. Compared with them, Lin Feng, who went directly from Munich to Marseille, seemed much more relaxed. Germany and France are neighboring countries, and Munich is relatively close to Marseille, so not much time is spent on the road and the journey is very relaxing. The most important thing is that there is no jet lag, and you don’t need to spend time adjusting to jet lag like other people. "If I had known I would not go back, I would have stayed in Europe and saved myself from all this trouble!" Seeing Lin Feng appear in front of everyone alive and kicking, Gao Lin, Chen Tao and others regretted their decision so much! "Come on, you guys are just nice talkers. The Bundesliga will be on holiday in mid-December. If you don't go back, you will be bored to death staying in Europe for the next 12 days!" The Bundesliga has the longest winter break and the earliest holiday.
They don't live in Europe like Lin Feng. If they don't go home when the team is on vacation, it will be difficult to endure these twenty days. Furthermore, all the other teammates have gone home to reunite with their families, but they are the only ones left abroad, all alone. Can they really bear it? Lin Feng thought of the question he had discussed with Krauchen a few days ago, and asked casually: "By the way, have you told the coach when to report to the club?" Chen Tao and his team have obviously considered this issue: "As I said, we will report to the club after the training in France. We will leave around January 1th. When will you go back?" Hearing that the other party would not report back to the team until January 1, Lin Feng was extremely envious: "I have to leave on January 1th at the latest, and the club has a game to play on the 10th!" Gao Lin and Chen Tao were both shocked: "Doesn't this mean that you are just here to check in at the National Olympic Team and then leave?" Lin Feng nodded. The situation was similar to what they said. According to the National Olympic Team's training schedule, the first game will not start until January 1. There is a high probability that he will not be able to participate in this game unless he asks for leave from the club. Considering that the opponent of the National Olympic Team in the first friendly match is a team from the French Ligue 2, Lin Feng did not plan to take leave. Even if I'm not here, with the help of Chen Tao and the others, it shouldn't be too difficult to defeat them! But it is a pity that if he is absent, it will affect the effectiveness of the team's tactical drills, which will cause trouble for Krauchen's work. However, considering that this European training camp organized by Krauchen and the Football Association is mainly to examine the strength and condition of the young players selected for the National Olympic Team's roster, in preparation for determining the National Olympic Team's final 23-man roster. The absence of a player like Lin Feng who had been selected long ago did not have that much impact. After all, the real tactical drill will not begin until the main lineup of the National Olympic Team is determined. Despite this, the National Olympic Team's overseas training still attracted the attention of a large number of fans and reporters. For Chinese fans, this is the first overseas training camp for the National Olympic Team since its establishment. A large number of people are called up and the training time is very long, a total of more than 50 days. The team will go to three places and compete with more than ten different opponents. Among them are teams from the top five leagues, their echelons, and even giants like Chelsea. Although it may be difficult for the National Olympic Team to defeat these teams given their strength, fans are still very interested in their matches against these top five league-level teams. Because by competing with these teams, it can help fans quickly position the strength of this National Olympic Team in their minds. It's normal to lose to these teams, but what if we win? Doesn’t that mean there is hope for next year’s Olympics?
…… Although he was unable to participate in the National Olympic Team's first friendly match, Lin Feng still took part in the second day's training very seriously and greeted more than 30 teammates in the team. The lineup of this National Olympic Team is very large. Krauchen has brought almost all the outstanding players in all positions under the age of 21. Although this National Olympic Team is composed of the national youth team from the 05 World Youth Championship, more than half of the players are new faces. In terms of goalkeepers, four were selected this time, namely Yang Cheng, Wang Dalei, Zhang Lu and Zeng Cheng. Yang Cheng was the goalkeeper of the 05 National Youth Team and was selected again this time. Wang Dalei has good talent. He has participated in Inter Milan's trial before and signed a contract with Inter Milan. However, due to his lack of strength, he was unable to gain a foothold in the team, so he was soon loaned to Venice in Serie C by Inter Milan. Venice is Inter Milan's younger brother and has played in Serie A in the past few years. In order to help its younger brother avoid relegation, Inter Milan loaned the world's highest-paid "Chinese boy" Recoba to the team. That season, thanks to Recoba's superb performance, Venice finally managed to avoid relegation. But in the following years, due to poor management and broken capital chain, Venice was forced to declare bankruptcy and was relegated to Serie C. But for Wang Dalei, this is also a good opportunity. With his strength, it is almost impossible for him to gain a foothold in Serie A, let alone in Serie B. But if you play in Serie C, there will be no problem at all. The level of Italy's Serie C is not low. Although it may not be better than the Chinese Super League, it is definitely better than the China League One. By playing here, Wang Dalei can get stable playing time. In addition, with the relationship between Venice and Inter Milan, he will receive certain care. For young players, it is really difficult to gain a foothold in a place where they are unfamiliar with the area and where the language, culture and living habits are completely different from those in China if no one takes care of them. The reason why many Chinese players failed to study abroad is that they could not adapt to life there, and finally could not hold on and had to return home. Compared with the first two, Zhang Lu and Zeng Cheng were relatively less famous at this time. However, Lin Feng knows that these two are also goalkeepers at the national team level, especially Zeng Cheng. His upper limit may not be as high as Wang Dalei's, but his lower limit is much higher than Wang Dalei, and his advantage is stability. But to be honest, the biggest weakness of the National Olympic Team may be the goalkeeper position. Due to the lack of excellent goalkeeper coaches in the country and the Chinese Super League's ban on the introduction of foreign goalkeepers, the local goalkeeper training system has been out of touch with the rest of the world for a long time. Working behind closed doors, many goalkeepers have received incorrect training since childhood. When Wang Dalei went to Inter Milan for a trial, Inter Milan's goalkeeper coach once pointed out that his saving hand shape was wrong, which was extremely outrageous. Compared to the goalkeeper position, the defensive line is pretty good. This time, Krauchen brought ten defenders including Feng Xiaoting, Zhao Ming, Wan Houliang, Dai Lin, Liu Yu, Zhang Ke, Zheng Tao, Yuan Weiwei, Lu Jianjun and Bai Lei. Five of them were from the 05 National Youth Team. Except for Tan Wangsong who was not selected, all the others were brought by Krauchen. If the defender list has a little bit of star power because of the addition of Feng Xiaoting, then the midfield of this National Olympic team can be said to be star-studded! There are as many as 14 midfielders selected for the National Olympic team, namely: Zhao Xuri, Chen Tao, Li Wei, Wang Hongliang, Yu Hai, Shen Longyuan, Dai Qinhua, Wang Xiaolong, Hao Junmin, Cui Peng, Zhou Haibin, Yu Hanchao, Wang Yongpo and Lin Feng! Among these fourteen people, as many as six are studying abroad in Europe, and two of them have already secured their place as the club's main players. It is no exaggeration to say that the main midfield lineup of this National Olympic Team is already on par with the national team. At that time, we only need to use one unrestricted quota to bring Zheng Zhi into the team, and it will be exactly the same as the national team's midfield lineup!
Because the National Olympic Team's midfield is too strong, players like Hao Junmin and Zhou Haibin sometimes have to play as substitutes. There won’t be a single midfielder of this level in the Chinese national football team more than a decade later! Compared with the strong and star-studded midfield, the Olympic team's forward line is lacking. There are eight forwards selected this time, namely: Zhu Ting, Gao Lin, Lu Zheng, Jiang Ning, Jiang Chen, Yang Xu, Xiao Zhi and Dong Fangzhuo. Originally, Lin Feng recommended Yu Dabao to Krauchen, but Yu Dabao was currently on trial with Benfica and was unable to spare the time. But after learning the news, Yu Dabao made a special trip to call Lin Feng to express his gratitude. In fact, given his age, it is difficult for him to be selected for the National Olympic Team, because this National Olympic Team is mainly composed of players in the age group of 85-86. Yu Dabao was born in 88, which is a bit too young. Therefore, Yu Dabao did not have any illusions from the beginning. He just did not expect that Lin Feng would actually take the initiative to recommend him. This made him feel flattered. He and Lin Feng did not know each other at all and had no intersection. Yu Dabao himself did not know how the other party knew him! Lin Feng knew Yu Dabao's name because he was a lucky star in Chinese football and had contributed many key goals to the national team. Although his own strength is not particularly strong, in the situation where foreign strikers are dominant, local strikers like him struggle to play. Throughout Yu Dabao's career, his position on the field has been declining, from a forward at the beginning to a defender in the back line. I have to say that this is the tragedy of Chinese football. Therefore, Lin Feng hopes to discover him earlier and see if he can help him improve his strength while he is still young. In this way, it can be regarded as reserving an extra seed for the local forward! Sometimes being too famous is not a good thing. A good training session ended up being a fan meeting for the young players! For some members of the National Olympic Team who had never dealt with Lin Feng before, being able to play on the same team with their idol and train on the same field was something they never dared to dream of! As a supernova who rose rapidly after the World Youth Championship, Lin Feng's name has already spread all over the world. He is even more well-known in China and has become an idol in the hearts of almost all young players. Driven by Lin Feng's popularity, more and more children began to love football and insisted on playing the same attacking midfielder position as Lin Feng. Even the most popular jersey number on the field was no longer the No. 10 jersey, but the No. 8 jersey worn by Lin Feng! It can be said that Lin Feng has become a national-level star in China. He may not be as popular as Liu Xiang, but he can be ranked alongside Yao Ming in basketball. It's quite interesting to talk about. When the Chinese national football team's performance was declining, Yao Ming emerged as a basketball player. With Yao Ming joining the NBA as the number one pick, the number of basketball fans increased rapidly, and Chinese basketball entered a peak period of development, with a momentum that was poised to overtake football. This is also reflected directly in the fans. Many fans who originally watched football have abandoned football and followed the trend to watch the NBA! But with the emergence of Lin Feng, this situation was reversed. The loss of football fans began to slow down or even stopped completely. Not only that, some people who originally did not watch football were attracted and became new fans, including fans who originally only watched basketball. With the increasing number of new fans, football has surpassed basketball and remains the largest sport in the country. Although basketball is also developing rapidly, it will probably be difficult for it to surpass football and become the largest sport in the country as it did before. Since Lin Feng does not live in China permanently, he does not have a direct understanding of the popularity and even admiration he receives in China. Although he would occasionally read domestic reports, he ultimately read too little. What he didn't know was that his every move, even some of his daily affairs, would be reported by major domestic media. Many people would follow all the news about him every day, just like watching a large-scale TV series. Even if there is no game, just some pictures of training games can make fans watch with great interest. If there is really nothing to write, domestic media will often reprint reports on Lin Feng by mainstream European media to see what their foreign counterparts have to say. Domestic fans are also very interested in these contents, especially when they see a certain foreign celebrity praising Lin Feng, or a certain wealthy club expressing their interest in Lin Feng, the fans feel as happy as if they had eaten honey and are extremely happy! Many young players in the National Olympic Team are part of this group of star-chasing fans. Now that my idol is right in front of me, I must seize the opportunity to ask for his autograph and take a photo with him.
Lin Feng was actually a little embarrassed to be idolized by his own teammates. To be honest, I'm not quite used to it and I never thought this situation would happen. But if you think about it carefully, this kind of thing doesn't seem impossible. Like the Argentina team in 22, many young players in the team were fans of Messi, so they united as one, centered around Messi, and created a tactic with him as the core. This overcame the Argentine team's problems of infighting and lack of unity, and finally defeated the strong with the weak, creating a miracle. Playing football with a group of fans, at least you don’t have to worry about the problem of team unity. From some perspectives, it doesn’t seem to be all bad? (End of this chapter)