Chapter 49 Selected for the national team for the first time, breaking the youngest record in team history Dortmund has scored very few goals in the past few seasons, even on the same level as relegated Bochum, and is definitely at the bottom of the Bundesliga. The main reason for this is that Dortmund’s forward line is not strong enough. At this time, Dortmund was very short of a strong striker. And this problem has been bothering them for more than one or two years! In order to reverse this result, Dortmund has spent a lot of money to introduce strong forwards over the years. In 2001, they spent 1000 million euros to sign Czech striker Jan Koller from Anderlecht. Then in the following year, Brazilian Everton was signed from Corinthians for a high price of 750 million euros. Jankoller's strength is indeed quite good. He scored 15 goals in the league last year and was able to squeeze into the league's scorer list. But Everton's performance is much worse. Due to injuries and various reasons, his form in Dortmund has been up and down, and it is difficult to maintain stability. Apart from these two, there are no better substitutes on Dortmund's bench.
What about [Derron Barkley], [Matthew Amoah], [Ebi Smolarek], [Nelson Valdez]... They are all a bunch of fake goods! A bunch of losers who played more than 20 times but only scored one goal or even failed to score a goal at all! Dortmund fans are so depressed that they are in tears! What's worse is that the team's top player Jan Koller is already 32 years old and his condition is starting to decline. If Dortmund does not quickly find his successor, their forward line will completely collapse when Jankoller retires. In this situation, if Dortmund were to be recommended Gao Lin as a potential player, they might actually become interested. But Lin Feng's network of contacts is not that wide. If Gao Lin wants to find someone for help in this matter, he should not look for him, but someone else, that is, the head coach of the National Youth Team, Krauchen. Krauchen graduated from the Cologne Sports Academy and has deep connections in the Ruhr area. Dortmund belongs to the Ruhr region, so it is completely reasonable to find him. So, Lin Feng passed the news to Gao Lin and suggested that he should ask for leave from the club, prepare some video tapes of highlights, and take them to Dortmund for trial. I believe that with Krauchen's introduction, the videotapes he brought, and his personal visit to the team for the trial, the probability of him being selected by Dortmund is still very high. After listening to Lin Feng's advice, Gao Lin burst into tears of gratitude: "Brother Lin, you are really my savior!" Lin Feng: "Don't be too anxious to be happy yet. It's still a long way to go before this thing succeeds. It won't be too late to be happy once you really sign a contract with Dortmund." "Hehe, no matter whether this succeeds or not, I am grateful to Brother Lin for pointing out a clear path for me. If you have any problems in the future, just give me a call. Even if it means going through fire and water, I, Gao, will never refuse!" Given this guy's talkative personality, Lin Feng didn't take what he said too seriously. I just urged him to hurry up and not delay too long, because by the time the transfer window closes, it will be too late. Gao Lin is not a person who likes to procrastinate. After going offline, he immediately started to take action. He asked for half a month's leave from Shenhua, flew directly to Germany with his agent, found Krauchen, and successfully joined Dortmund's training camp under the other party's recommendation.
Gao Lin is meters tall, which is definitely not short among forwards, but his physical confrontation ability can only be described as average, and he himself does not like close combat with the opponent's defenders, which makes it difficult for him to become a fulcrum-type forward. But Dortmund's coach soon discovered other advantages of this oriental boy. He found that Gao Lin had a high football IQ, outstanding passing ability, and very delicate footwork, but his shooting was a little unreliable and he often missed the ball, which was quite outrageous. If he wasn't a bit slow and his dribbling ability wasn't average, he might have performed well as a winger. But even if he can't play as a winger or a traditional center forward, he still has a place in Dortmund's lineup. That is to make use of his strengths in passing and handling the ball, let him play as a supporting striker, and help other teammates score goals. After talking with the national youth team coach Krauchen and carefully watching the video tape brought by Gao Lin, Dortmund finally decided to sign Gao Lin. They offered Shenhua 150 million euros, but Shenhua was not very satisfied with the offer. After some bargaining, the two sides finally reached an agreement on 190 million euros. On July 7, Dortmund officially announced the news on its official website. By this point, in the 05 World Youth Championship, except for the goalkeeper, almost all the main players of the national youth team had successfully gone abroad. The news of Gao Lin's transfer once again caused a sensation in the country. While the majority of football fans expressed their blessings to Gao Lin for studying abroad, they also began to reflect: Why can't our goalkeeper go abroad? Studying abroad is not scary, but it will be embarrassing if someone is missing! All the other players of the national youth team went abroad, but the goalkeeper was left behind. There must be a reason for this. "In competitive sports, being bad is the original sin. In the final analysis, it is because our goalkeepers are too low-level and not worthy of the attention of foreign clubs. That is why they are unwilling to introduce Chinese goalkeepers." "Haha, I often see some fans making irrelevant comments like goalkeeper is the position with the smallest gap between Chinese football and world football, and how awesome Chinese goalkeepers are. I find it funny!" "If our local goalkeepers are really that good, is it necessary for the Football Association to ban the introduction of foreign goalkeepers?" A few years ago, Luneng introduced a Montenegrin goalkeeper named Sasha Petrovic. As a result, this unknown goalkeeper in Europe actually improved the defensive quality of Luneng's back line to a higher level. His various amazing saves made the forwards of the A-League teams at that time doubt their lives. At the same time, the foreign goalkeepers introduced from abroad by teams such as Shenhua and Quanxing have performed very well in their respective teams, surpassing the domestic goalkeepers. It was precisely because of seeing the horror of foreign goalkeepers that the Football Association had to issue a goalkeeper ban in order to prevent other teams from following suit and causing local goalkeepers to lose their jobs. Since 2000, it has been forbidden to bring in goalkeepers from abroad, and all local goalkeepers have to be used instead. Luneng's foreign goalkeeper Sasha was forced to leave as a result. This closed-door approach not only failed to improve the level of local goalkeepers, but due to the lack of external communication, the overall quality of local goalkeepers in all aspects has been increasingly affected. The lack of professional and high-level goalkeeper coaches in the country makes the training of goalkeepers very unscientific and non-standard. Some goalkeepers even make the wrong hand movements when saving the ball, and they themselves don't know it, and their coaches don't know it either. This is ridiculous! If they can't even teach such simple things, what else can you expect? To make up for this shortcoming, we must open up to foreign exchanges, hire high-level goalkeeper coaches from abroad at high salaries, use the most advanced and scientific training methods, start from the most basic, and train domestic goalkeepers well. But when everyone uses local goalkeepers and they are all bad at what they do, not many people are willing to spend the money. This kind of thing requires the Football Association to step in. But given the Football Association's capabilities, let alone whether they can realize this problem, even if they really realize it, given their decision-making ability and efficiency of action, it is hard to say when they can make changes.
At the same time as Gao Lin transferred to Dortmund, the Chinese national football team announced the 7-man roster for the East Asian Four Finals on July 22. What has attracted much attention from the outside world is that in this roster, five players are young Chinese national youth players who recently appeared in the World Youth Championship. The five people are: Lin Feng, Zhao Xuri, Feng Xiaoting, Hao Junmin and Chen Tao. Among them, Lin Feng, who was selected for the national team for the first time, broke the youngest record of the Chinese men's national team at the age of 17 years and 62 days. 上一个记录的保持者是他在国青的队友周海滨，周海滨曾在2003年1月26日首次入选国家队，当时他的年龄是17岁零161天。 (End of this chapter)