20 | Thursday, January 21, 2021 HONG KONG EDITION | CHINA DAILY SPORTS SOCCER Zhu: China’s stars can make Euro grade Coach urges nation’s best homegrown For a very long time, last week named a 27-man squad for ized players, with Brazil-born pair a training camp in Haikou, Hainan Ai Kesen (aka Elkeson) and Alan talents to follow in Wu Lei’s footsteps we have believed province, starting Friday and con- featuring in Li’s latest training our players should grow in tinuing until early February. Wu was squad. By SHI FUTIAN from La Liga last season, Wu had omitted due to his club commit- However, Zhu believes the Chi-
[email protected] been the only China international foreign leagues. We hope ments in Spain, with the squad nese Football Association’s plans to playing in a major European league to see many promising mostly made up of players from CSL improve youth training are more Despite Wu Lei’s current strug- following his transfer to the Barcelo- giants Guangzhou FC and Beijing important to the nation’s soccer gles in Spain, former Team China na-based club from Shanghai SIPG domestic players step out Guo’an. future than persuading foreign head coach Zhu Guanghu has urged in early 2019. of our own league.” Because of the pandemic’s disrup- imports to change nationality and more young Chinese players to try However, after a debut campaign tion to the schedule, the Maldives pull on the red jersey. and emulate the Espanyol forward packed full of standout performan- Zhu Guanghu, former Team China coach match will be Li’s first game in “We need more pitches in our by forging a career in Europe.