Jeonbuk's favourite player has been kept as hostage in Korea.
With the tense World Cup 2014 qualifiers coming, many Chinese fans naturally expect to see the best national team players to play against Laos. The roster includes former Schalke midfielder Hao Junmin, captain Zheng Zhi, France killer Deng Zhuoxiang, and etc. But as you are reading these names, but you might ask yourself, where the hell is Huang Bowen?
For those who don’t know who he is, he is a defensive midfielder who plays for Korea League’s Jeonbuk Motors. He used to play for China Super League heavyweight Beijing Guoan and is currently the Chinese Super Leagues youngest ever scorer. He is considered to be a promising star and starts consistently for Jeonbuk Motors.
Whilst the fans expected Huang Bowen to report to the national team’s Kunming training camp, the media announced that the midfielder maestro was being held hostage by his Korean club. The South Korean national team does not need to play in this weekend’s preliminary World Cup qualification games. So instead of taking a break, the K-League has arranged fixtures to be played this weekend. Jeonbuk is currently on the top of the K-League, and they do not want their starter Huang Bowen to miss any games. Despite a prior arrangement for Huang to play for the national team, Jeonbuk still refuses to release the midfielder.
The Chinese Football Association has threatened to report Jeonbuk Motors to the Asian Football Confederation. The media mentioned that this is not the first time Jeonbuk causing trouble for CFA; when defender Feng Xiaoting played for Jeonbuk, he was also forced to sit out for national team matches.
by smari
Not wanting to count chickens before they are hatched but Laos only have three professional players and the pairing of Guangzhou team mates Zhang Zhi and Yang Hao should be be able to cope??
However I’d imagine that China would have FIFA (and AFC) behind them if it was to report Jeonbuk.
It is interesting that Laos only have three professional players, and they play in Thailand’s first and second tier league.
I also read an article, the Chinese coach group commented that Laos is equal to China second tier’s bottom teams lol.
I just saw BigSoccer China Forum, and the mod made a good point that players might use this match to get into English Premier League. The entrance policy is If China is ranked above 70, and a player played 75% of the qualified national team matches of from the past two years, a Chinese player would be eligible for plying his trade in English Premier League. I hope CFA will be successful in reporting Jeonbuk’s action.
Lao Qian，how do you consider the match between China and Laos
lol lao qian as in 老千?
whoa buddy dun call me a 老千, i dun gamble nor i have the ability to control the match 🙂
i dunno what to comment about it, i need to be neutral in my view.
the first half was atrocious, i seen forum saying the chinese is deliberately playing horribly, but conspiracy is conspiracy lol, they could never be proved.
haha, calm down, 老钱 is me…
China is playing Laos, a very weak Asian side, they don’t need Huang for this…As much as I care and follow the national team, I can’t get excited about a match against freaking Laos, the aggegrate of the two matches should be in the double digits…
13-3 China. Just in double digits!
For a article writer you sure do use strong words like “hostage” and “where the hell”. Also this was against Laos why would the Chinese be scared of a minnow football country?
The hostage word was translated from the Chinese media.
I admit “where the hell” is part of my style, but it was used to depict the audience’s reaction (which is true, especially Huang Bowen is the only oversea player and fans would love to see him play).
Regarding your question about why would the Chinese be scared of Laos, I am not sure what you are trying to ask. In neutral view, the Chinese national team has been vulnerable to bad results against any team. The Chinese team has lost to Haiti, drew to Andorra, lost to Thailand, eventhough Laos might be a semi-profesional team, the Chinese team might have had bad result, as the first half of the game suggested.
Hey
I just read an article about the Laos game and it said Gao Hongbo is expected to leave after the Laos series because the national body wants a foreign coach by summer. It seems the WE post about the new Wanda sponsorship possibly being detrimental to Gao staying on was very prescient. What do you all think? I mean, this could be unsettling for the team if the coach is leaving soon no matter what they do.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-07/22/content_12956740.htm
I agree that a new coach would be unsettling for the team, especially the new coach would only have one month of time to prepare the team. If the second leg Laos game is Gao Hongbo’s final game, then the coach will only have the rumoured August Jamaican friendly to play. Please note, the Jamican friendly was not even confirmed by the CFA.
It is also interesting to see how many coaches were linked to the job. Luis Aragones, Christopher Daum, Mar Lippi were linked. BigSoccer Forum even said former Liverpool/Inter Milan coach Rafa Benitez was invited by CFA hahaha.
Just keep Gao Hongbo for god’s sake.