The 5th East Asian Cup is set to take place in South Korea this Saturday. The tournament will be seen as a fresh start for the Chinese national team, which will now be under the watch of the new coach Fu Bo, who replaces Jose Antonio Camacho.
Fu put his team through their paces during training in north China's Hebei Province. And amongst the squad were four players who were surprise additions, veterans, Qu Bo, Du Wei, Yang Hao and Yang Zhi.
The quartet have not made the national side since it was run by Gao Hongbo, who was the predecessor to the recently departed Camacho. China are the defending East Asian Cup champions. They grabbed the 2010 title, thanks to two goals from Qu Bo, those strikes helped China defeat Hong Kong to seal the championship.
That was definitely worthy of a celebration, but so is his 32nd birthday, which just happened to fall during the training session. Besides bringing in the four veterans, China's former Under-22 coach, also added youngsters Wu Lei, Shi Ke and Zhang Xizhe to the team. So there will be a good mix of youth and experience on the side.
"Some players will be absent for the first few matches. So we need to find some veterans like Du Wei, Qu Bo, and Yang Hao, who can play in their place, and who have experience. They will also provide continuity to the national team. Actually they are still good players in the league. Many Europeans who are approaching 40 still play. Ours are just over 30," said Fu, Interim Coach of Team China. (CNTV.cn July 18, 2013) |