Reporter Chen Yong reports On February 27, the Chinese Football Association announced the latest U17 national men's football team (hereinafter referred to as 08 national youth) list, the team will train in Foshan and the United Arab Emirates, and then go to Saudi Arabia to participate in the U17 Asian Cup and impact the U17 World Cup. This is another attack on the World Series by Chinese football after the 05 National Youth League failed to defeat the U20 Asian Cup 1/4 finals and the World Youth Championship.

The U17 Asian Cup, which will be held in Saudi Arabia from April 3 to 20, will be the first U17 Asian Cup after the expansion of the U17 World Cup, with 16 teams competing for eight places in the U17 World Cup. In other words, the 08 national youth only need to qualify from the group to qualify for the U17 World Cup.

In the qualifiers, 08 Nationals were placed in a group with South Korea, Bahrain, Bhutan and Maldives, and in the crucial two matches, 08 Nationals defeated Bahrain 2-0 and drew 2-2 with South Korea. In the battle between China and South Korea, the number of shots and shots on target of the 08 national youth was 12 and 6, while the South Korean national youth only had 6 and 3 times, in addition, the possession rate of the 08 national youth reached 60%, showing the team's good mental outlook and technical and tactical level.

In the group stage, 08 is the fourth team, in the same group as the hosts Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and Thailand.

Although Saudi Arabia is a first-tier team, its strength is not very strong among first-tier teams, and of course, playing at home is one of their advantages; Uzi and Thailand also have their own characteristics. As far as this group is concerned, the 08 National Youth Club will face a certain degree of challenge, and if you want to break out of the group stage, you must show strength and courage.

Speaking of which, Chinese football has recently had a relationship with Saudi Arabia, the national football team competed with them in the same group for the World Cup ticket, and the U20 national youth lost by one goal in the 1/4 finals of the U20 Asian Cup, and I don't know if the U17 brothers can avenge them.

The specific schedule and time of the 08 national youth group stage are against Saudi Arabia at 1:15 a.m. Beijing time on April 4, 11 p.m. against Uzi on the 6th, and Thailand at 1:15 a.m. on the 10th.

In this training camp, 27 players have been recruited by the 08 national youth, 4 more than the official list, and they will be reduced at that time.

The starting 11 players who participated in the qualifiers against the South Korean national youth were Yi Hesan, Jiang Zhiqin, Elinizar, Sun Tianyu, Wang Gengrui, Liu Jiale, Yao Junyu, Yan Yuzhe, Wei Xiangxin, Abibullah and Wang Yi, who were all on the list, in addition, substitutes Li Xiang, Liu Binglin, Li Qitao and Chen Zifan were also called up.

In that list of 23 people, the losers this time were Li Junpeng (09 age group) and Lai Jiantao. Li Shuaiqi, Wei Zijian, Li Xingchen, Peng Ziming, Wei Deliang and Jiang Yixiang, who plays for Serbian Grafika, have been added.

As far as the qualifiers are concerned, although the lineup is dominated by players from Evergrande Football School and Luneng Football School, Abibulla from Rongcheng is the absolute core, and he performed very well in the qualifiers. In the 2025 season, Abibulla was selected for the first team of Rongcheng, and in the previous warm-up matches, Abibulla scored two world waves in the game, one was a long-range shot, and the other was a direct free kick.

In the process of growing up, 08 Guoshao has always insisted on playing with high-level teams. For the 2024 season, they went to Germany, Romania and Japan in February, April, June and August respectively, and participated in the "Peace Cup" in Shenyang and the qualifiers in October.

As for this training camp, head coach Kenichi Uemura's purpose is to "improve" - personal tactical understanding and personal technical ability improvement, physical fitness improvement, and team quality and diversification.

When there was no training camp and games for the 08 national youth, the coaching staff assigned the corresponding training tasks to the players and set up a daily reporting mechanism.

Insisting on high-intensity training and insisting on warming up with strong teams is the training and competition principle that Kenichi Uemura has always paid attention to.