According to the original plan, the last chapter about Chelsea is all over. After chatting with my friends, I realized that the significance of writing the history of Chelsea team is not only to talk about the gossip of the Premier League, but also to realize the reference significance of Chelsea Club to China football, so this chapter was created.
A careful review of Chelsea's journey from the 1990s shows that it is almost a history of the rise of the Premier League.
In the early 1990s, English football was at its lowest ebb. They have just lifted the ban for five years, and their skills, tactics and training level are far behind other European teams.
Therefore, English football is facing a difficult and painful change.
The first thing the British do is to reform their own league. As we all know, 199 1 year, the top league in England was called "League One" and later renamed "Premier League". This is not just a name change. 1991July 17, seven top clubs in England/kloc-0 signed an agreement, which became the foundation for the formation of the Premier League. The newly established top-level leagues will operate independently of the FA and FIFA, enjoy exclusive broadcasting rights and sponsor negotiation rights, and the number of teams will be reduced from 22 to 20.
In short, there are fewer teams, more competition and more money. English football is developing in a brand-new direction.
The first Premier League game is on August 5th, 1992. When Brian Deane scored the first goal, few people thought that the Premier League could develop so fast in a short time. But more than 20 years later, the Premier League has surpassed Serie A, which has the reputation of "Little World Cup", and is considered as one of the best leagues in the world, with fast pace, fierce competition and many strong teams. It is already the most popular sports event in the world and the highest-paid football league.
It was also in the 1990s that football in China began a profound change. From 65438 to 0994, China football officially embarked on the road of professionalization. From the beginning of A B, to the later Super League, and then to 20 10 Xu Jiayin's entry into Evergrande, the China Football League has experienced a trajectory similar to that of the Premier League for more than 20 years.
So what can Chelsea's success give us and what can China football learn from it?
Chelsea is undoubtedly the epitome and best representative of the Premier League. It became the Premier League champion from a mediocre midstream team, and later won the European Championship trophy. From the beginning, it was rejected by G 14, and later it became a giant that was truly respected by everyone.
I only hope that in this chapter, I can take Chelsea as a mirror and try to find something about the regularity of contemporary football, which can be shared and discussed by people who are still a little enthusiastic about China football like me.
People always have the view that burning money, that is, by hiring famous coaches and big-name stars, to quickly build a team and improve its performance, is not inflow. However, we have to admit that burning money has become the most popular and effective operation method in football at present, and Chelsea is the best example.
In the Super League, Evergrande is the first team to burn money. On 20 10, Xu Jiayin entered Evergrande on 20 13. Evergrande, which was still in the domestic secondary league at that time, not only won the Super League championship, but also became the first China team to win the AFC Champions League. In the same year, Evergrande participated in the World Club Cup for the first time as the champion of the AFC Champions League, which was the first time that China appeared in the World Club Cup.
Faced with such achievements, there are always people who are worried and feel that Evergrande has taken a crooked road. We don't rely on youth training, we don't start from the lowest level and foundation, but we use money to buy a foreign star, plus a world-famous coach. No matter how good our grades are, water without resources has no roots, and Evergrande is only a short-lived local tyrant in the end.
But Chelsea's experience just shows that local tyrants can become real giants, and this road is completely feasible, even the most effective way for teams with weak foundations to succeed.
After building a team quickly with money, under a well-functioning mechanism, the team was slowly built and transitioned, which is exactly what Chelsea experienced.
When it comes to burning money, who can match Chelsea's Roman Abramovich? As soon as Abramovich burned money, he pushed a team that had not touched the league title for 50 years to the top of the Premier League. This result can make Liverpool, which has the most League One titles but has never won the Premier League title, angry.
Abramovich hired international coaches such as Mourinho, Ancelotti and Kong Di for Chelsea with money, which made Chelsea not only have many titles, but also gradually changed from utilitarian football to technical football.
Abramovich expanded the breadth and depth of Chelsea's lineup by burning money, enabling them to fight on many fronts in the domestic league and the Champions League, taking their time and being comfortable, and winning in the Premier League, the Champions League and even the World Club Cup.
Abramovich has also done a lot for Chelsea by burning money. Not only that. Since he entered Chelsea, the Premier League has attracted more foreign investment. Old teams such as Manchester United and Liverpool have also been acquired by foreign investors, and one Premier League team has become rich after Chelsea.
Driven by money, the Premier League surpassed Serie A in the mid-2000s and became a frequent visitor to the Champions League finals. In 2007 and 2009, Premier League teams even occupied three seats in the semi-finals of the Champions League. Although the performance has declined in recent years, the Premier League team is still a strong team that every team can't be underestimated in the European War.
From the experience of Chelsea, it can be seen that burning money is a proven way to succeed, especially in the league with weak foundation.
There will always be such an argument: too much foreign aid in a league will definitely suppress the development of domestic players. Last year, the Football Association also introduced a new policy: the number of foreign aid for each team in the Super League and the Chinese League decreased from the previous "3+ 1" to "up to 3". Although only one foreign aid quota was reduced, many Chinese Super League teams were caught off guard.
However, there is no league without foreign aid. Chelsea is proof. Although they have a main line created by English players, they have a lot of foreign aid and good quality: the joining of international stars such as Robben, Shevchenko, Ballack and later Costa and Fabregas has also pushed the overall level of Chelsea and even the Premier League to a higher level.
If you look further, you will see "foreign mercenaries" in the 1990s. Chelsea will even offer a trick to spend a lot of money on horse bones, that is, to buy older and outdated stars to improve the strength and reputation of the team. Gullit's Chelsea is about to become a nursing home for football stars, but look what Zola, 40, has brought to Chelsea and even the Premier League.
Not only the Premier League, but also other leagues are highly dependent on foreign aid.
Even Barcelona, which is now in full swing, is not completely dependent on Spain. They have a deep Dutch tradition and a famous Dutch gang. It is this historical origin, and it is these Dutch coaches, such as cruyff, Fan Jiaer, Rijkaard and those talented Dutch players later, that gave Barcelona a profound experience and understanding of total attack and total defense football, and finally played such a pleasing football.
And to what extent can foreign aid affect local players? I haven't seen any objective statistics yet.
But in Serie A, known as the "Little World Cup" at that time, the performance of the Italian team has been good. From 1982 to 20 14, Italy won two world cups, one runner-up and one third runner-up. This at least shows that foreign aid will affect the performance of the national team, and it is not a fate.
For our football in China, professionalism has existed in name only for more than 20 years, but for various reasons, we are still in the primary stage of professional league, far from prosperity. The foreign aid of the Super League can affect the development of domestic players, which is far from being achieved.
As we all know, the league is the foundation of a national football and a national team. Now even the top leagues are not booming, and they are worried that too much foreign aid will lead to the decline of the national team's performance. It's really a joke. It can even be said that our foreign aid is not too much, but too little. They didn't play a far-reaching role in promoting football in China.
At the beginning of last year, together with the new foreign aid regulations, the China Football Association also issued a new youth training regulation: two local players under the age of U23 must sign up for each tournament, and at least 1 must start.
Theoretically, it seems to encourage the development of young domestic players and give them more opportunities to play. But in fact, this made the team complain. Many teams will use a young player and then replace him as quickly as possible. After all, the level of these young players is far from the starting lineup, and the results are what these teams care about.
Of course, the original intention of the Football Association is good. There is no doubt that youth training should be compulsory to help China achieve long-term development of football. However, youth training is a long-term product, and it is impossible to achieve a breakthrough in a short time.
So back to a question: What is the relationship between league and youth training? Most people will think that youth training is the foundation of the league.
In this regard, Chelsea is not a very appropriate example, but it might as well be used as a reference. Chelsea have never given much thought to youth training. Aside from foreign aid for the time being, at least Mourinho has not deliberately tapped Chelsea's own young talents, and Lampard and Terry are not the products of Chelsea's own youth training. Giants don't have to rely on their own youth training.
In China, the proportion of people who play football is very low. Admittedly, this has a lot to do with China's education system and the lack of grass-roots football culture like the West. In such a big environment, the league is only the source and the best driving force of youth training, not the other way around.
Without top quality leagues, youth training is just empty talk. Don't expect to use youth training to promote the development of the league, which is unrealistic and objective. On the contrary, youth football needs a good overall atmosphere. Only when the league becomes wonderful and beautiful can we attract the audience to the stadium, make people proud of football, and attract more young people to the sport and even the industry.
This is much better than an executive order.
Only when middle-class families in our country train their children, not only let them learn piano and violin, but also send them to football fields to learn football, will there be real hope for youth training in China.
We can envy the bright smiles of boys in South America when they play football. This smile not only contains their love for football, but also includes their dreams of changing their lives and even the whole family after mastering this survival skill. Yes, in South America, football can change fate, which is why children are eager for football.
That is the reality. When can football become a sport that can make Chinese people proud and a cause that can earn a lot of money, youth training will have the most solid foundation. What makes all this happen is a prosperous and well-run league of the highest level.
Only when people see the way out and hope of playing football, and only when playing football becomes a declining job, will there really be children willing to go to the stadium, play football and develop their potential in this respect, even if it is only to make money. Before that, it is unrealistic to think too much about youth training.
The league is the foundation of everything, including the national team and youth training.
It is true that a good league may not necessarily improve the performance of the national team, nor may it promote the vigorous development of youth training. Even in Britain, Germany, Italy, and even the Netherlands, which likes teenagers to become famous, the enthusiasm of young people to make a living by football is decreasing. However, without the prosperity of the league, even the domestic football audience, everything is impossible.
Playing the league well is the most important thing, and there should not be too many unrealistic concerns. Chelsea's experience tells us that "burning money" and building an "eight-nation league", regardless of youth training, improving the team's performance as quickly as possible, and then slowly doing basic things such as teaming up and changing the style of play, are not short-sighted "local tyrants" practices, but proved to be successful.