The U21 national football team officially formed a team: Antonio refined his tactics and prepared for the three major competitions

Reporter Chen Yong reports On December 1, the Chinese U21 national men's football team started a new training camp at Mission Hills Haikou, which is also the official establishment of the U21 national football team. Song Kai, chairman of the Chinese Football Association, followed the team up close throughout the day on the 7th. In this training camp, the main task of head coach Antonio is to further examine the players, and at the same time to comprehensively refine the skills and tactics. On the 11th and 14th of this month, the U21 national football team will play two warm-up matches against the Iranian U19 team.

Although this training camp is the fourth training camp of the U21 national football team in 2024, in fact, this is the official completion of the U21 national football team in theory. In the previous three training camps in August, September and November, the team was clearly marked with the words "selection camp", especially in August and September, and some players who participated in the league could not be selected.

There are a total of 30 players in this training camp, most of whom were born in 2003 and 2004. However, although the U21 national football team has entered the official team formation stage, there is still a certain gap with the strongest team of the U21 national football team in theory: first, two national team players of appropriate age, Bai Helamu and Hu Hetao, did not enter the training list, and they still have to prepare for the top 18 of the World Preliminary Championships with the national team in March and June next year; Secondly, the U19 national football team, that is, the 2005 age group national football team, currently has the U20 Asian Cup competition task, so players in this age group cannot enter the U21 national football team, such as Shi Songchen, Peng Xiao, Yi Mulan, Wang Yudong, Liu Chengyu and even Abibulla have the ability to be selected for the U23 national football team. Although Abibullah is only 16 years old now, she will be 18 years old by the time of the 2026 U23 Asian Cup and Asian Games.

The U21 squad is tasked with competing in the 2025 U23 Asian Cup qualifiers, the 2026 U23 Asian Cup and the 2026 Nagoya Asian Games.

During the inspection of the U21 national football team, Song Kai, chairman of the Football Association, gave a very good evaluation to the U21 national football team, believing that the foreign coaches in the U21 national football team and the Chinese coaches cooperated very closely and communicated very smoothly, which promoted the good relationship between the coaching staff and the players.

This was evident as early as Antonio's tenure in charge of the 2003 youth team. At that time, Antonio had a good understanding with the Chinese coaching team led by Shao Jiayi, and Shao Jiayi did a lot of work behind the scenes to help Antonio in an all-round way. From another point of view, at that time, Antonio gave up a large number of technical flow players and insisted on tactics similar to "703", which is inseparable from the trust of the Chinese Football Association in Antonio and the harmony of the team, and the return is natural: the 2003 national youth finally broke out of the encirclement under very difficult circumstances and returned to the Asian Cup after 4 years.

Taking the U21 national football team on the 7th as an example, after lunch, the Chinese and foreign coaching teams communicated with the two players, including targeted video demonstrations. Before the start of the afternoon training, the coaching staff gave the players a video analysis of the Iranian team, and the subsequent training content was closely related to the video analysis of the Iranian team. At 8 p.m., the coaching staff convened the players for another video analysis session.

In addition, the atmosphere of the team under Antonio is harmonious, for example, on the 1st, the team conducted cross training, Antonio himself played, and a dive to the top attracted the players to applaud, and the training atmosphere was also high.

The core content of the U21 national football team's training on the morning of the 7th is offensive tactics. Antonio divided the players into two groups, alternating between tactical training and basic physical training. In terms of tactical training, Antonio arranged a number of offensive routine drills, and compared with the simple tactical play during the Asian Youth Championship, Antonio arranged more detailed tactical training this time, and more players participated in the attack.

In the technical and tactical drills of the U21 national football team, there are more left and right dispatches in the backfield, and there are more side coordination routines, but the cooperation in the middle is relatively simple, which is also a strategy formulated by Antonio for the weak organizational ability of the midfield of the U21 national football team. Essentially, Antonio is adept at developing specific tactics, such as when he coached the 2004 and 2003 youth teams. After the official formation of the 2003 age group national team, Antonio refined the techniques and tactics and designed more diversified tactics.

After the routine, Antonio arranged confrontation training, requiring the confrontation training to be carried out completely according to the routines of the drill, and increasing the requirements for maintaining the formation, which was also to consolidate the results of the routine. The two warm-up matches against the Iranian U19 team were a further test of the technical and tactical training content of the U21 national football team.

The U21 national football team will encounter opponents of various strengths and styles in future games, so the U21 national football team also needs some relatively delicate offensive tactics while practicing anti-counter tactics.