Win the Hohhot Four Nations Championship! 09 Guoshao still has a long way to go, and self-confidence is their greatest wealth

Reporter Chen Yong reports On the evening of June 1, the Chinese U16 men's football team (hereinafter referred to as the 09 national youth) won the 2025 CFA China team · In the final battle of the Hohhot International Football Championship, Xingtai Cup defeated Australia U16, which had won two games and two wins, 5-2, and successfully won the championship of the U16 Four Nations Tournament with an undefeated record of two wins and one draw.

In this game, the 09 national youth in the opening two minutes behind the headwind to achieve a full flowering, the starting trident Wanxiang, Shuai Weihao, Liang Shiyu each made contributions, substitute Zhang Bolin, Xie Jin also scored, although Li Junpeng's own goal once made the opponent close to the point difference, but the 09 national youth team finally resisted the pressure and did not repeat the mistakes of the second game against Vietnam. And the 6-1 "goal ratio between the two sides" is also jokingly called "the best Children's Day gift" by fans.

The undefeated cup in the warm-up game may not be a big joy, and the team's shortcomings are also obvious. However, compared with the two national youth teams that missed the Asian Junior Championship seven or eight years ago, the 09 national youth team and the 08 national youth team that unfortunately stopped in the group stage of the Asian Junior Championship have at least let the outside world see the progress of China's young national teams - how to consolidate this hard-won "hope" and gradually solve the problems existing in the youth national teams at all levels is the focus of the future work of the Football Association and the coaching staff.

The "Xingtai Cup" Hohhot International Football Championship was held at the National Northern Football Training Base, and the four participating teams included 09 national youth, Australia U16, Saudi Arabia U16 and Vietnam U16. The gratifying point of 09 Guoshao is that the lineup is deeper, especially on the offensive end, which has achieved more flowering, regardless of the main force and substitute players, they have outstanding performances.

The first game defeated Saudi Arabia U16 2-1 to get off to a good start, and the tenacity of the 09 national youth won the affirmation of the fans, and the stoppage time goal ended the Chinese team's four consecutive defeats in the past year from the senior national team to the national youth team (05 national youth) and then to the national youth team (08 national youth) against Saudi Arabia. Although compared with the previous 4 defeats, the gold content of this warm-up friendly match is slightly insufficient, but the fans in Hohhot still used the continuous high attendance rate to show the outside world's recognition of the 09 national youth.

If the first game against Saudi Arabia gave the 09 national youth confidence, then the embarrassment of Vietnam's two-goal lead being forced to draw by the opponent in the second game is the best lesson for the national youth in this four-nation tournament. At the youth level, the differences in the effectiveness of Asian teams are far less impressive than those of senior national teams, and the ability to grasp opportunities (catch opponents' mistakes) and the player's mentality (reduce their own mistakes) have an impact on the trend of the game even less than the tactical execution.

09 In the case of a two-goal lead at halftime, the second half was shortly lost due to a mistake in stopping the ball and giving the opponent a set-piece opportunity, as well as a completely avoidable red card, including the cross that the opponent got a luck bonus at the last moment and turned into a hanging goal, which is worthy of the national youth coaching staff and players to review and summarize after winning the cup.

From winning the game to being chased twice by the opponent and losing the victory, the national young players were poured a basin of "cold water", but it was a basin of "quite timely cold water".

Australia's U16s, who defeated Vietnam and Saudi Arabia 2-1 in the previous two rounds, were regarded as the biggest test for the national youth in this four-nation tournament.

In this game with Australia, the lineup of the national junior team has been fine-tuned, including the position of the player has also changed, He Sifan, who has been serving as an arrow, played to the right midfield to replace Kuang Zhaolei, who started the first two games, and Shuai Weihao ushered in the start and became the forward partner of Wanxiang; The right-back started three games with three starts, and this time it was Gu Boyu who appeared in the starting position. The back position is quite interesting, Xu Zhengpeng, Zhou Yunuo and Lu Junbo, the three formed three sets of back combinations in three games, and this game was Zhou Yunuo and Lu Junbo starters.

Only 2 minutes into the opening game, the national youth team had a hole in the opponent's strong throw-in defense, and Australia took the lead, but unexpectedly, the national youth team let one chase three: 10,000 goals in the 10th minute, Shuai Weihao scored in the 40th minute, and in the 71st minute of the second half, the national youth team expanded the score to 3-1. Although in the 79th minute of the game, Li Junpeng accidentally put himself in an own goal, but in the 81st and 83rd minutes, two substitute players Zhang Bolin and Xie Jin scored another goal respectively, and finally locked the score at 5-2.

5-2, even against the untidy lineup of Australia U16, such a hearty victory, still exceeded the expectations of the outside world, this four-nation championship trophy made the "big boys" worthy of the trip, and it was also a great Children's Day gift from their national fans.

Behind the madness of the 09 national junior team, the most touching thing is the confidence they show in the face of their Asian rivals, and their undisguised desire for victory.

After experiencing the lesson of the 2-0 lead in the last game and being tied together, although the national junior team was behind in this game, the team played methodically, and the three goals in the 10th minute, the 40th minute and the 71st minute, all of which were about 30 minutes apart, also proved the stability of the mentality of the national junior team, which is undoubtedly an improvement.

What's more, when Li Junpeng set himself up in the 79th minute, Australia once closed the score to 3-2, and the second half of the second game against Vietnam seemed to be repeated, but after the lessons of the previous round, the national junior team did not panic, but worked harder to attack - less than 5 minutes after 2-3, Zhang Bolin and Xie Jin made contributions successively, helping the team to turn the lead into two goals again.

Of course, the 09 national youth also has shortcomings, but the whole team's desire to win, as well as the self-confidence shown by most players in the game, are particularly valuable: from Shuai Weihao, who shined as a substitute in the front round and still scored high scores in the closing game, to Xie Jin, who has a highlight performance on the side every time he comes off the bench, this 09 national youth offensive player, whether it is a starter or a substitute, dares to put on a posture and fight the opponent head-on. Behind "newborn calves are not afraid of tigers" is a self-recognition of their own technical and tactical accomplishments.

And this kind of self-confidence is precisely what the senior national team does not have. Although the national football team has worked very hard in recent games and has shown a good fighting spirit, it is obviously lacking in confidence in many games, especially against strong teams. Negative psychological cues will naturally reduce the actual combat effectiveness of the players, which in turn leads to a vicious circle. So how does this confidence build? Of course, it relies on every actual battle, relying on the gathering of sand into a tower of every victory - this is the "value of the warm-up champion" that many people look down on.

Of course, affirming the value of the warm-up game championship is not turning a blind eye to the lack of national youth: the subtext of the limited gap between the main team and the substitutes is actually the team's lack of star players. And this kind of abundance in personnel selection is also limited to the offensive end, the national youth in the back, right back and other positions have shortcomings, especially the right back has been looking for the best candidate, three games three starters have a red card impact, also active assessment; The lack of the back waist, the coach of the national youth Minoshi Ukishima responded to this problem after the first game, and the tactical choice of the 09 national youth was also largely trapped by this.

Looking back on the past, the 2000-year-old national youth team and the 2002-year-old national youth team missed the Asian Youth Championship for two consecutive years, and even the 2001-year-old national youth team also missed the Asian Youth Championship. Summarizing the recent situation, 04, 06 and 08 have entered the main match for three consecutive years, and the 03 national youth and 05 national youth have entered the main competition for two consecutive years and have reached the quarterfinals, with obvious progress.

As far as the future is concerned, the construction of the national youth team and the national youth team of the Chinese Football Association, on the one hand, is to consolidate this progress, and strive to break the window paper and return to the World Youth Championships and World Youth Championships, which requires more efforts in the entire youth work; On the other hand, national teams at all levels need to work hard to make up for their own shortcomings, at present, there are good players in the defenders and attacking ends of the national teams, but there have always been problems in the back, and even the fullbacks have begun to have problems, so in the youth training work, how to strengthen the training of back players is also one of the core of the youth training work.