During the entire European winter training period, the warm-up match of the Longteng team was very meaningful.

There are not only high-level players, but also those with equal strength, and even more who have been trained, through various different opponents, Zhang Sheng has tinkered with his new tactics a lot.

And against these teams, the players in the team, especially the substitutes, have grown very quickly. Of course, Zhang Sheng's empty inventory in the system now proves that he has emptied his inventory, and all the tactical boosters and player growth boosters have been swept away.

In the end, through these games, Zhang Sheng confirmed his main lineup this season.

The goalkeeper is still Huang Dawei, his overall performance, especially in stability and error rate, is much better than Zhou Wei.

In the center forward position, Chavez's all-round is not comparable to Nie Jiang's now, Nie Jiang's position will be slightly further back, and he will play with the positioning of a shadow striker.

Among the three midfielders, the left midfielder Zhou Zhou will focus on defense, the right midfielder is Tao Wentao for the time being, although the strength of De Paul, the Argentine player, is definitely the top three in the team, but the cooperation with the team is not too tacit, and it takes time to get familiar with it, and the back position is still Roque Gill.

The two wing-backs, Ben Alpha on the left and Xiang Tiange on the right, had no arbitrary objections.

The three centre-backs, from left to right, are Lu Zhihui, Ma Yongli and Du Zhenyu.

Such a main lineup is actually not much worse than last season's Longteng team, except for the lack of Pato's explosive point, which may make the team's counterattack strength drop a little, and other positions have even improved.

For example, Tao Wentao, who replaced Lin Feng, not only worked hard defensively, but was far stronger than the former in terms of ability at his feet.

Last season, there were left and right fullbacks who were the shortcomings of the Longteng team, and this season, whether it was Xiang Tiange and Tao Wentao on the right, or Lu Zhihui and Zhou Zhou on the left, the overall defensive strength has improved a lot.

In terms of substitutes, the Dragons have improved the most, and De Paul and Qi Ming are players who have the ability to change the situation on the field when they get on the field.

In terms of player index, the overall data of the new season is also very impressive.

Among the players with more than 110 stats are Ben Alpha: 118/125, among the players over 100 are Chavez: 106/112 and De Paul 100/117, and the players with more than 90 stats are Roque-Gill (97/104) and Nie Jiang: 90/118, and in the 80 bracket there are Tao Wentao: 85/90, Ma Yongli: 83/83, and Du Zhenyu: 80/84.

You must know that in the Chinese Super League, even the strength of the core players of the national team is in the early 80s, but even if the goalkeeper stands alone in a line, the team is divided into four lines, and the core players are four, and there are four domestic players in the Longteng team who have reached 80 ability points, and they all have the ability to compete for the core level of the team.

The only one that can compete with the Longteng team is Guangzhou Evergrande, and this is still the data they only have after they bought Lin Feng in the past.

Of course, the largest part of the group is made up of players with an ability value of more than 70.

According to the players who stayed in the team this season, they are Lu Zhihui: 78/78, Huang Dawei: 78/78, Xiong Jian: 77/78, Qi Ming: 76/120, Yu Bo: 76/76, Zhang Hao: 76/76, Zhou Wei: 75/75, Zhou Zhou: 75/75, Xiang Tiange: 75/82, Zou Weijia: 75/77, Yan Xiaoyu: 74/83, Ni Kai: 72/78, Liming: 72/78, Zeng Prosperity: 72/85, Shen Jun: 70/88, Cao Jinghao: 70/88, Huang He: 70/92.

These 25 players will be the first player registration for the Dragon Club this season.

Compared with the previous team, there may be a lot of players in their 60s and 50s to make up the numbers, and all the players in the current Longteng team are more than 70, which means that these players can play the main force in any Super League team except Guangzhou Evergrande.

Compared with the past few seasons, the Dragons team is also very different is the increase in the average age of the starting lineup, when they first entered the Chinese Super League, the Dragons team once set the lowest average young record of 21.8 years old in the team.

In this season, although these players have gone a lot, the overall age of the team is still slowly rising, if you calculate the starting lineup determined by Zhang Sheng, the average is more than 23 years old, which is a lot higher.

This average age can be said to be the most powerful stage, they have good game experience, but also young and strong, can run and burst, and can withstand their recovery ability in two races a week.

In the comparison with its biggest rival, Guangzhou Evergrande, the Longteng team can better reflect this advantage.

Guangzhou Evergrande's main squad this season is as old as 28.12 years old, which is still under the average of Lin Feng (22 years old), Jin Yingquan (26 years old) and Goulart (25 years old), two slightly younger foreign players.

It can be said that once Guangzhou Evergrande's foreign aid has some problems, Guangzhou Evergrande, with an average age of nearly 30, will be very dangerous, with the character of their boss, and they want any champion, then double-line, or even three-line combat is inevitable.

Historically, Guangzhou Evergrande has become more and more difficult to play in the following seasons, in addition to the opponent's spending money to buy, the increase in their average age is a very key factor.

In the history of the Chinese Football Association, because of the U23 policy, it was sprayed into a dog by fans, to be honest, to say that this policy was a pat on the head by the Football Association, and it was formulated by a play, it is really a bit wronged. Because Guangzhou Evergrande is really not the one with the oldest average age, Shanghai Shenhua is even more serious than them, and the same serious situation is Beijing Guoan, Hebei Huaxia and Tianjin Quanjian.

And there are a bunch of international players in these teams, and even more so over 30 years old.

In the 2017 World Preliminaries, in the game against Uzbekistan, the average age of the Chinese national team's starters was as high as 29.18 years old, and more than half of them were over 30 years old, which is still the reason why Deng Hanwen, a 22-year-old player, and then look at the players on the bench, those who can be sent out are basically over 30.

With such an age structure, if you want to say that there is no problem, no one believes it, but it can only be said that the dark environment of the previous ten years has completely disconnected Chinese football.

On the contrary, if you look at the average age of the world's top teams at that time, the youngest average age was Germany at 25.17 years old, followed by France at 25.38 years old, England was the third youngest at 25.58, and Italy, which used to give people an aging feeling, was only 26.15 years old, ranking fourth.

This is followed by Switzerland at 26.22, Belgium at 26.32, Portugal at 26.8, Wales at 26.83, and Spain in 10th place, but only at 27.52.

It can be seen that the age of the traditional Haoqiang is around 26. This is the age structure of the national team that is in line with today's trends. And we're 3 years older!

Just like neighboring Japan and South Korea, the average age of the national team is around 26 or 27. Now those who have passed the age of 24 in the European leagues are embarrassed to call themselves youngsters, but they are seasoned veterans.

From here, everyone will find that the team has good results, and a reasonable age is too important.

It is not without reason why the local players of the Chinese Super League are expensive, and why the players of the Longteng team are robbed by a bunch of people.

Zhang Sheng is also a systematic helper, while maintaining the strength of the team, he can also let the Longteng team send a large number of talents to outside clubs, otherwise, even if Zhang Sheng is given a lot of money, can he buy good players?

Even if the Longteng team is constantly selling people, these players are a drop in the bucket for the Chinese Super League, if Zhang Sheng expected, the U23 policy of the Chinese Super League will still be introduced, and the only possible situation is that the mandatory will not be so strong.

When the Dragons returned home from Europe, the 2016 Chinese Super League winter (preseason) transfer window was about to close, and the arms competition between the giants and the local giants also died down.

In this winter window, the Chinese Super League is even more terrifying than last season, they have far exceeded last year's 353 million euros of spending, becoming the world's most money-burning league in winter, and the Premier League, which has always been known for burning money, spent only 253 million euros, a full 100 million euros less than the Chinese Super League, and the third-ranked Serie A is only a quarter of the Chinese Super League.

What is surprising is that as a secondary league of the Chinese Football Professional League, the Chinese League also has 60 million euros in transfer spending, ranking fourth in the world, higher than the fifth-ranked Bundesliga, which spent 52 million euros.

Even the Chinese League can rank among the top four in the world, and the money burning of Chinese football has completely become a scale.

Corresponding to the high price are stars who are far more famous than in the past.

Teixeira, J. Martinez, Ramirez, Gervinho, Guarin......

Players of this level, Chinese fans in the past could only watch them play in Europe's giants, but now they can finally see them at their own doorstep, in their home team.

I have to say that the introduction of Pato by the Longteng team at the beginning, and Pato's performance in the Chinese Super League gave them a great inspiration - the world-class stars of the year are far from those who can compare with the stars who treat the Super League as a nursing home.

In this Chinese Super League winter window transfer, Jiangsu Suning topped the list with more than 100 million euros, Hebei Huaxia Happiness ranked second with 72 million euros, and Guangzhou Evergrande, which has always spent the most money in the past, "only" spent more than 60 million euros, and also sold a lot of players and recovered a lot of costs.

Because of the explosion of most of the teams, the value ranking of the Chinese Super League team has also changed a lot, Guangzhou Evergrande, which was at the top of the list in the past, was squeezed to the second place by Jiangsu Suning, and the Longteng team, which was ranked second, because of Pato's departure, the team's value and ranking have plummeted, and they were pressed to the fifth position by Huaxia Happiness and Shanghai Shenhua.

Compared with the players, they are not inferior to the famous coaches who came to the Chinese Super League to pan for gold. In the face of real money, the world's famous marshals from all walks of life are completely irresistible.

Last season, Shandong Luneng, who had all four of them, dismissed Kuka and brought in Menezes, the former coach of the Brazilian national team like Scolari, and Zaccheroni, who also had no four of them.

Unlike in the past, the materials of some international second- and third-rate coaches were sent to China to "fool around", and at present, there will always be stacks of super foreign aid and world-famous coaches' materials on the desk of the general manager of the Chinese Super League club.

Even such tacticians as Prandelli and Carlo Ancelotti are on the legendary list.

On the one hand, the football concept of excellent foreign coaches is more conducive to maximizing the competitiveness of the team, and on the other hand, good players are obedient under the training of good coaches.

In such a crazy atmosphere, the Longteng team has become a "clear stream" of the entire Chinese Super League.

First, he loaned his team's sharpest knife to Europe, and then Lin Feng, the captain who was unanimously considered by outside fans to be the core of the team, was sold to rival Guangzhou Evergrande at a high price.

In this case, the team still only brought in a slightly famous foreign player.

Therefore, when many media tour the teams of the Chinese Super League and make a pre-season preview, they are skeptical of the Longteng team, of course, after experiencing the pre-season sale of the Longteng team in the previous two seasons, they don't dare to say it too hard, after all, the Longteng team has been doing well no matter how it sells, and it won the double championship last season.

In response to the suspicion of the outside world, everyone seemed confident in the pre-season "family forum" that has become a habit.

Zhang Sheng said bluntly: "This season, our minimum goal is to win at least one championship. If possible, I would like to challenge for the Triple Crown. ”

Zhang Zhijun also deliberately advised: "During the Spring Festival, when participating in the government's tea party, the provincial and municipal leaders also specifically mentioned this matter. They also hope that we will continue to maintain the results of last season and continue to bring honor to Hubei Province and Jiangcheng City. I reassured them that we would do well, and I believed you. ”

Zhang Sheng is very grateful, and it is estimated that the relevant leaders of the province and city are anxious to see the Longteng team selling players like this, for fear that they will run away when they make money, and the business card of the football city that has been established with great difficulty cannot be thrown away like this.

Brother Zhang Chen sighed very emotionally about the transfer this winter, as well as the value of domestic players: "I really didn't expect football to cost so much money before, and I didn't expect football to be so profitable." He looked at Zhang Sheng with envy on his face and asked, "This winter, I praise our club for selling players and earning a lot of money." ”

"Definitely. You've seen this winter's account. Zhang Sheng said proudly, "The income is really good." ”

Around this Spring Festival, the Longteng team reached a staggering more than 490 million yuan from the sale of players alone. Lin Feng's 150 million, Xiao Yunfan and Wei Zhimin are both 100 million, Zhu Xuhe and Yao Tian are both 70 million, plus the training fees of many players in the youth team and football schools who have been bought out, the Longteng team can be regarded as making a lot of money.

The team's only investment in personnel is only 4 million euros from De Paul, which is about 28 million yuan.

If you add the income of the Dragons in the Club World Cup, this alone has already deducted a lot of De Paul's transfer fee.

The prize money of the Club World Cup is US$5 million for the champion, US$4 million for the runner-up and US$2.5 million for the third runner-up.

At least there will be no difficulties for the club on the issue of money.