China must encourage young coaches to improve, says Yang Chen

HONG KONG, July 23 (Reuters) – China’s hopes of improving its position in world football hinge on improving the level of training of young people across the country, said the former Cup forward. Yang Chen world.

President Xi Jinping’s desire for his country to become one of the world’s leading footballing nations has resulted in huge growth in football across the country for most of the past decade.

Huge sums have been poured into the sport by the private sector as top players and World Cup coaches have come and gone from the Chinese Super League.

Despite the investment, China has yet to secure a World Cup spot for the first time since its debut in 2002, and Yang believes the focus needs to be shifted.

“The quality of the coaches is the key to the training of young footballers,” Yang, who represented the country at the 2002 World Cup, told China Daily.

“Many foreign football leagues cooperate with us in terms of youth training. Bundesliga clubs, for example, are now sending their coaches to China to help train our young players.

“We should also train our own youth coaches. Chinese coaches are trying to gain more experience. The advantage of Chinese coaches is that they understand Chinese children better than foreign coaches.

“A foreign trainer may not fully understand what a Chinese child thinks, due to his different cultural and educational background. So he cannot just copy and paste his original methods of training and education in China.”

Several Chinese clubs have invested heavily in academies in an attempt to develop players for the future, but these have yet to yield results as the country continues to fight internationally at the youth level.

But while it’s important to make an impact on the world stage, Yang – who spent four years with Eintracht Frankfurt in Germany during his playing career – is also eager to see football play a role in it. improvement of the health of the country.

“In recent years, our country has tried to make changes in physical education,” said Yang, who currently coaches the Chinese Under-16 team.

“We are now giving more importance to sports lessons. We need to give students more time to enjoy sports and football.

“There are a lot of students in China who can barely do a single pull-up or are unable to complete a dozen push-ups.

“Football has many benefits for children, such as teaching them about teamwork. The sport can be an inspiration for the next generation.”

Reporting by Michael Church, editing by Ken Ferris

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