The preparation for the winter training of the Taishan team was quite difficult, and the club and Choi Kang-hee had disagreements on recruitment

Reporter Chen Yong reports On January 6, the first team of Shandong Taishan officially assembled and started winter training. Compared with previous years, the preparation for winter training this time was quite unsmooth.

The Tarzans only finished their 2024 season in December last year, and the players were given only one month to recover. This year's winter training period is also facing the problem of time constraints: the winter training will start on January 6, and the seventh round of the AFC Champions League Classic will be ushered in on February 11.

On the other hand, the club is currently undergoing major personnel changes, and there are likely to be more changes in the future, which will inevitably affect the team's preparations for winter training this year.

Also, there are some disagreements between the club and head coach Choi Kang-hee, mainly the power to bring in reinforcements. In the previous introduction of foreign aid, Cui Kangxi's controversy was not only the introduction of Pato, who was not at the same level, nor was it just that some of the reinforcements were expensive, but there were also some other levels of controversy. In the introduction of domestic aid, the controversy caused by Cui Kangxi is actually greater, and his introduction will not help the long-term development of the club and the Taishan team. In fact, in 2024, Choi Kang-hee has several domestic aid candidates who have been rejected by the club.

The direct impact of this disagreement is that the Taishan team has stagnated in the introduction of foreign aid. At present, the three foreign players of the Tarzan team, Zeka, Kazaishvili and Cressan are naturally going to stay in the team, and Marcel only has a six-month contract and is sure to leave the team. Judson is a knife-forward defender for the Tarzan team, who has performed well on both offensive and defensive ends, and he has been seeking a contract extension, but the crux of the problem is that his attendance is simply too low: in the 30 rounds of the Chinese Super League in the 2024 season, he has only played 10 games, and only 1/3 of the attendance rate. The Taishan team has played with single or double foreign players for a long time, becoming the team with the lowest playing time in the Chinese Super League last season, and Judson's injury is one of the important reasons. So, in this centre-back position, the club are looking to bring in a new, more capable centre-back.

In addition, after a comprehensive analysis of the actual technical and tactical performance of the Taishan team last season, the club wanted to bring in a midfielder to strengthen the team's performance in the transition between attack and defence, but this did not go well. Objectively speaking, Choi Kang-hee's performance in the FA Cup final was disappointing, and the out-of-control midfield was actually the key to losing, but Choi Kang-hee was a coach who was unwilling to change easily.

All in all, the problem of reinforcements is the core difficulty of the Taishan team's preparation for the new season, if there are no two excellent foreign players to join, whether it is the last two rounds of the AFC Champions League Classic, or the 2025 season of the Chinese Super League and FA Cup, the Taishan team will inevitably be difficult. On the contrary, fans are quite covetous of many teams' big local reinforcements, which will not have much impact on the Taishan team's record.