Chapter 144 National Team

In fact, the discussion about Zhou Yi joining the national team had already started in the Chinese media after his outstanding performance in his first match.

Not everyone supported Zhou Yi joining the national team. There are always controversies in everything, and it is impossible to win everyone's approval.

Those who agreed believed that Zhou Yi's excellent performance at Dortmund proved his ability. Such a good player should enter the national team. In addition, Gao Hongbo's national team was already known for using young players. Wouldn't it be a natural thing to select Zhou Yi into the national team?

Opponents, on the other hand, argued that Zhou Yi had only played one professional game for Dortmund, and it was as a substitute. Although his performance was good, there were also accidental factors. One game's performance could not prove anything. It was too early and too hasty to say that he should be recruited into the national team now.

In fact, what the opponents said made sense. It was indeed too arbitrary to say that Zhou Yi should be selected for the national team based on only a few tens of minutes of playing time as a substitute.

However, Zhou Yi played in the following games, and he went from being a substitute to a starter, and his performance was as excellent and stable as ever.

Those opposing voices became smaller and smaller, because they also felt that their reasons were not convincing.

After Zhou Yi played three games, Gao Hongbo's national team encountered trouble in the Asian Cup qualifiers. As a result, the call for Gao Hongbo to recruit Zhou Yi into the national team began to rise again.

However, the Chinese Football Association did not express any opinion on such calls. Instead, Gao Hongbo was cornered by reporters during an interview and asked about Zhou Yi. He said that he had been following Zhou Yi's performance in Dortmund and would consider it carefully. But he didn't say whether he would recruit him, or when.

Unexpectedly, Zhou Yi's entry into the national team came so suddenly…

Just when they didn't expect it, suddenly, they found that Zhou Yi was already a member of the national team's training list!

Although it is not yet known whether he will eventually represent the Chinese team in the competition… but he has already entered the training list, isn't the competition just a matter of time?

What excites Chinese fans is that Zhou Yi's joining is exactly what the current national team urgently needs.

Although the Chinese team's attacking front is much better than before in terms of appearance, and it plays a technical style, it still lacks a strong offensive organizer and scoring methods.

Although Zhou Yi is not a scorer, he is a very good offensive organizer. He has already proved this at Dortmund. So far, he has played four times, starting three times and substituting once, contributing four assists and one goal.

Such performance naturally deserves everyone to give him more hope.

Zhou Yi's entry into the national team has also made some fans who were originally disappointed in Chinese football refocus their attention on the Chinese national team.

In China, the composition of fans is very complex. There are fans who only watch the game but don't play, fans who only play the game but don't watch it much, and fans who both watch and play the game. At the same time, among the fans who watch the game, there are those who only watch European leagues and international competitions, such as the World Cup and the European Cup; and there are fans who only watch continental competitions such as the World Cup and the European Cup, but don't watch European leagues at all. The common point of the former two is that they don't pay attention to domestic football, whether it is the domestic league or the national team's games, they don't care much. In addition, there are some fans who are die-hard fans of the domestic league, and also watch the Chinese national team's games. The number of these people is relatively small.

Zhou Yi debuted in Dortmund and performed well, attracting the attention of many Chinese fans. Not all of these Chinese fans care about and support the Chinese national team. Without Zhou Yi, they would only watch European leagues.

But because of Zhou Yi, their attention has also turned to the national team.

This is when many people realized—damn, how come I don't recognize… anyone on this national team?!

In addition to the fact that these people are older and their memories of the national team are still stuck at the Korea-Japan World Cup eight years ago, it is also related to Gao Hongbo's emphasis on young players.

There are many players in Gao's army who had never been selected for the national team before. In his initial list of thirty-one national team training members, new national team players exceeded one-third of the total. Some players were not even starters in their clubs, and there were players like Yu Hanchao who were in lower-level leagues.

So it's normal for his national team list to feel unfamiliar. Not to mention those who haven't paid attention to the national team for eight years, even fans who have been following the national team will feel a little disoriented.

However, after more than half a year, they have gradually become accustomed to such a national team coach who dares to use young players, but can completely disregard the old players' feelings.

After Zhou Yi was selected for the national team, the excited Fang Shuai published an article he wrote himself on the Tieba forum.

The article analyzed Zhou Yi's future prospects in the national team for everyone.

As a senior fan of Chinese football, Fang Shuai is naturally very clear about the previous messed-up things in the national team. But this time he is very optimistic.

Because he believes that the anti-crime and evil crackdown in the general environment has a deterrent effect on some people who want to play tricks. The previous national team was chaotic because it was chaotic from the top of the Football Association. If the upper beam is not straight, the lower beam will be crooked. Naturally, it was a mess.

But now, those corrupt Football Association officials have all been arrested. Leaving aside what the results will be, at least the atmosphere within the national team will be much better, and there will be fewer cronies who were stuffed in with money.

From a small environmental perspective, Gao Hongbo's national team emphasizes young players, but does not like to use veterans. Li Weifeng, the former captain of the national team, has not been selected for the national team since Gao Hongbo took office. And another veteran, Zheng Zhi, played in Gao Hongbo's first few games, but his status was very awkward. In the recent games, he didn't even make the training list.

In the past, the most impressive thing about the Chinese national team besides failure was the factions within the team. What Dalian gang and Shanghai gang, what Northern faction and Southern faction, everyone formed a complex and mutually opposed faction relationship based on clubs and place of origin.

Various legends between big brothers and little brothers are talked about by Chinese fans with great interest.

If a newcomer wants to enter the national team, if he doesn't pay homage to a faction and recognize a big brother, then don't think about getting ahead in the national team. It's already very conscientious if they don't pretend to make a mistake in training and cripple you.

But now, it can be said that Gao Hongbo's national team is the national team with the least factions and cliques in history.

Because everyone is basically a newcomer who was selected for the national team for the first time, or marginal figures from previous national teams.

They don't have time to create any factions in it yet.

The atmosphere within the national team is actually the most relaxed for Zhou Yi. He doesn't need to be a little brother of any big brother, and he doesn't need to participate in the previous grudges and factional struggles. He just needs to play well.

So Fang Shuai believes that now is the best time for Zhou Yi to join the national team. Whether considering from a technical and tactical point of view, or from a locker room political point of view, it is so.

He is very optimistic and bullish about Zhou Yi's prospects in the national team.

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Although the reporters really wanted to be able to interview Zhou Yi, no one knew what flight Zhou Yi took to Shanghai to join the team, so in the end everyone could only take pictures of Zhou Yi shaking hands with Gao Hongbo outside the Chinese team's training ground.

At this time, Zhou Yi had already put on the national team's training uniform. He looked no different from other national team players, except that his figure was still slightly thin among his teammates. Standing in a large group of teammates, he was not very prominent. If you only look at his appearance now, it would be easy to mistakenly think that he is still a student in school, and does not look like a young genius who can stir up a wave in the Bundesliga.

In fact, not only the reporters on the sidelines had such feelings, but even Zhou Yi's new teammates in the national team were looking at Zhou Yi with slightly doubtful eyes—how does this look like a student, how did he become a rising star in the Bundesliga recently?

Gao Hongbo's Chinese national team emphasizes young players, and also emphasizes players from the domestic league—of course, the latter is because there are almost no Chinese players who are doing well abroad now. Zhou Yi is considered a rare case.

Zhou Yi is the only player in this team who plays abroad, and coupled with his legendary experience, in the eyes of his teammates, he seems to have a layer of mystery.

Is this thin kid really… that powerful?

Some people in the national team have also watched Zhou Yi's games, but the feeling of watching through the TV screen may be different from the personal experience.

Some Chinese reporters on the sidelines also worried whether Zhou Yi, who is used to the fast-paced football of Dortmund, would be able to adapt to the slightly slower pace of Chinese football.

Everyone looked at him, with huge question marks in their heads.

Even if he has achieved initial success in the Bundesliga, he is still an unknown in the eyes of many people.

After the training started, both the reporters on the sidelines and the players on the field opened their eyes wide to see what Zhou Yi was capable of.

After watching for more than ten minutes, the reporters on the sidelines had new doubts in their minds—Zhou Yi's performance in training is still good, there is no problem with receiving and passing the ball, and even it can be said that it is very smooth.

But such smoothness made the reporters feel wrong.

In their imagination, Zhou Yi returned from Germany, a developed football country, with advanced football concepts. Leaving aside how his personal strength compares with the strength of these players in the national team, just in terms of understanding of football, he should be completely different from the national team players who have only received training in China, because Zhou Yi had never received Chinese football training in China before, so he was a blank sheet of paper. He directly became a professional player in Germany.

Just to give the simplest example, the Bundesliga must be faster than the Chinese Super League, and Dortmund's rhythm must be faster than the average rhythm of the Bundesliga. Then Zhou Yi, who has been receiving Dortmund's training, must also be accustomed to the fast-paced style of play. He must not be able to adapt to the slow-paced style of the national team.

In the reporters' imagination, Zhou Yi's first training session will definitely not go smoothly. He and his teammates should have all kinds of mistakes.

But they didn't see the scene they imagined.

Zhou Yi cooperated very normally with his teammates in training, and there was no difference.

Is the level of the national team too high, and can it directly seamlessly connect with European football?

None of the reporters believed this reason.

Then is it possible that Zhou Yi's level is not as high as we imagined?

This is not right either.

Everyone is professional. After watching half an hour of training, they can still see that there is a reason why Zhou Yi can start in Dortmund.

His strengths are in passing and finding gaps.

In this regard, Zhou Yi did well in training.

Then why can he integrate into this team so smoothly?

Isn't this the first time he has been selected for the national team? This is completely not the performance that a newcomer who has been selected for the national team for the first time should have!

Although Zhou Yi's first national team training performance was not bad, the question marks in the reporters' minds did not disappear at all.