Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, November 18
Xinhua News Agency reporters Wang Meng and Wu Junkuan
The new season of the Chinese Men’s Handball Super League will kick off in Suzhou on November 20. The U24 national men’s handball team, which will compete as the Chinese Chinese Sports Team, ended its closed training session at the National Olympic Sports Center on the 17th and headed to the Suzhou Division.
It is understood that this U24 national team has assembled many players who performed well in the just-concluded Shaanxi National Games, with an average age of less than 22 years old. Team leader Yao Sujie said that the characteristics of this team are young, fast, and hardworking. The goal of participating in the league is to win the championship.
Renewing the Asian Games for a breakthrough
For this U24 national team, the league is a valuable opportunity for them to hone their team, and the Asian Games to be held in Hangzhou next year will be their “big test”.
In the eyes of head coach Zhu Xinchen, although these young players are relatively top-notch in China, they are still far behind the strong teams when compared to the same age group in Asia. On the one hand, physical fitness needs to be strengthened, otherwise it will be difficult to complete technical movements in a fast-paced game, and cooperation is even impossible to talk about; on the other hand, the technical aspects are not very mature.
It is true that there are various shortcomings, but the young marshal valued more is whether they can cherish the opportunity to be selected for the national team and defend the national honor.
The Chinese male player won the gold medal at the 1982 Asian Games, but has never made it to the World Championships since 1999. Zhu Xinchen once led the Chinese men’s team to win seventh place in the Guangzhou Asian Games as the team captain, which is also the best result of the Chinese men’s team in the past 20 years.
Zhu Xinchen said that he hopes to lead these young people to surpass what they have achieved in the Asian Games, and even go one step further and return to the World Championships after more than 20 years.
But at the same time, he is also clearly aware that the road to revival cannot “raise from 0 to 8848 all at once”, it will take a long time to work. Fulfilling the responsibility as a head coach, passing on their understanding of opponents to this youth army, and then waiting for them to return to their respective local teams to bring out a group of outstanding players, this is Zhu Xinchen’s vision.
Innovative league model to serve the national strategy
Handball, which is popular in Europe and even surpasses basketball, is not well-recognized in China, while Chinese men’s hands have fallen from the top position in Asia in the 1980s to outside the top ten today. The sluggish performance has also affected it to a certain extent. The promotion and popularization of handball in the country.
Therefore, in the top-level design to promote the development of Chinese men’s handball, it is an inevitable choice to take into account the rapid improvement of the national team’s performance and the creation of a professional league that meets the needs of the public.
In 2019, the Chinese Handball Association and China Sports Group launched the highest-level professional handball league in China-the Chinese Men’s Handball Super League, with the goal of creating “China’s fourth largest professional league.”
When the Men’s Super League was established, the national team participated in it. The considerations are based on the following aspects: First, the current technical and tactical foundations of the men’s national team are weak and require a certain amount of time to focus on training; Young players have more high-level practical opportunities. The U24 national male players who play as the Chinese Chinese Sports Team are mainly players under the age of 22 based on this consideration.
At the same time, in order to improve the overall technical and tactical level of the league in a targeted manner, the Chinese Handball Association has determined through scientific research to strengthen the long-range and fast attack capabilities of domestic players, and use the leverage of rules in the league to encourage teams to improve their technical and tactical standards.
In the league scoring statistics for the 2020 season, the Chinese Handball Association has made special regulations. On the basis of the traditional score of 1 point, goals scored by peripheral long shots, fast attack counterattacks, and air relays beyond the 9-meter line are counted. Is 1.5 points. The new scoring rules have promoted some teams to formulate targeted special tactics, the pace of the game has been significantly accelerated, and the viewing of the game has also been greatly improved.
Identifying their own problems, through innovating the league model, unifying thinking and forming a joint force, creating conditions for improving the performance of the national team in foreign warfare. In this way, as long as a certain amount of time is given, the Chinese male hand will be able to fight a turnaround in the future.
It is reported that due to the consideration of epidemic prevention and control, the men’s Super League will have seven teams in Suzhou and Hefei to compete in a tournament system in the new season. The competition adopts a single loop method, and one to seven places are scheduled for the competition in the Suzhou Division. On December 16, each team will move to Hefei to compete in a single round-robin competition again according to the ranking of the first stop, accumulating the sum of the two rounds of single-round ranking points, and the top two teams will compete for the championship. (over)
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