Reporter Wang Wei reports On January 2, the Shenzhen Youth Team conducted the first practice of 2025 at the Pingdi base; On January 8, Shenzhen Youth Club officially announced that Cheng Yuelei had joined - the Shenzhen team, which is expected to make a solid start to the Chinese League, is making every effort to seek a breakthrough on a new platform for the 2025 season.

Can it be replaced? Two sets of solutions to deal with it

Shenzhen young people won the third place in the 2024 season of the Chinese Second League, although they failed to directly rush to the first division, but considering the actual situation of Chinese football, they have prepared two sets of plans for the 2025 season: one is to prepare according to the standards of the Chinese League if the replacement is successful, and the other is to continue to implement the preparation plan of the Chinese Second League.

The difference between these two sets of plans lies in the direction of recruitment: if they fail to enter the Central League, the team will mainly focus on bringing in excellent young players; If the team can be added to the middle league, it needs to bring in foreign reinforcements, and at the same time bring in high-level domestic reinforcements with experience in high-level professional leagues.

As early as the 9th of last month, Shenzhen young people took a vacation for training to prepare for the first phase of winter training in the 2025 season. In this stage of winter training, some young players come to the team for trial, so for the players, this is not only a physical reserve process, but also a period of technical, tactical and team tacit understanding.

During the team's winter training, the club has also been waiting for the Chinese Football Association to announce the entry list for the 2025 season. According to the plan of Shenzhen Youth Football Club, the first thing to do is to keep the main players of last season, and at the same time, try to keep the players who have contributed to the team. If the team fails to make the second division, it will still play in the 2025 season with the original main framework, and then bring in some excellent young players in some positions.

On January 6, the Chinese Football Association announced the access list for the new season, and one team in each of the three leagues of Super A and B failed to get access, and it was only a matter of time before the Shenzhen youths who finished third in the second division last season were added to the Chinese League, so the club made a slight adjustment in the goals and team construction in the new season, in addition to leaving the players who contributed to the team last season, and also carried out corresponding actions in terms of recruitment.

During the winter training period, Shenzhen Youth took the lead in renewing the contracts with players Xie Baoxian, Zhou Xin, Lin Zefeng and Ke Yuan, all of whom were the heroes of the team last season. In addition to this, Shenzhen Youth are currently in talks with several key players from last season in the hope of keeping them all in the squad.

In the 2024 season, Shenzhen youth are stretched thin in the goalkeeper position. During the winter training period, the club learned that goalkeeper Cheng Yuelei, who had previously played for two seasons in the Meizhou Hakka team of the Chinese Super League, had expired his contract with the original club after the 2024 season, so Shenzhen Youth immediately contacted Cheng Yuelei, and after exchanges, the 37-year-old goalkeeper officially joined Shenzhen Youth.

Cheng Yuelei has been playing for Chinese Super League teams in Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Meizhou for a long time, and he has made his home in Shenzhen. Although he is 37 years old, as a goalkeeper, Cheng Yuelei has always maintained a high level of competition and rich practical experience. Shenzhen youth hope that Cheng Yuelei can bring the experience of playing in the top league to the team and play an exemplary role in the team in the new season. At present, there are also a number of domestic players on trial for the Shenzhen Youth Team.

The latest policy: there are incentives, there are subsidies

Li Chunhao, general manager of Shenzhen Youth Football Club, introduced that in order to create a good training and living environment for the team, the club's new training base in Pingdi, Shenzhen will start construction in 2024, with the completion and use of two 11-a-side natural grass fields and two artificial grass fields, the functional rooms and dormitories of the base have also been gradually completed, and the team has used the new base during the winter training period.

On January 8 and January 11, Shenzhen youths played two warm-up matches with the visiting Brazilian sports team at the training base, and lost 0-4 and 1-3 to Brazilian sports respectively.

In the third quarter of the warm-up match with the Shenzhen Youth Team on the 11th, the Shenzhen Youth Team added 4 players from the Brazilian Sports Team, however, this is only an on-site inspection of the target foreign aid by the Shenzhen Youth People, and the next all-round investigation will be conducted on other target foreign aid.

On December 4 last year, the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television, Tourism and Sports issued a notice on "Several Measures to Promote the High-quality Development of the Sports Industry in Shenzhen", in which professional football clubs that have been successfully promoted from the Champions League, China B League and China League A to the next professional league for the first time will be rewarded with no more than 10 million yuan respectively. At the same time, in order to cultivate the home economy of the professional league, improve the home attendance rate, and build a well-known home stadium in China, football and men's basketball professional clubs, according to the level of participation in the league, will be given a subsidy of no more than 25% of the approved investment funds and a maximum of 25 million yuan per season, and the clubs that enter the top three in the top league in terms of the average number of spectators per game in the season or are awarded the outstanding popularity of the Chinese Super League will be rewarded with no more than 5 million yuan.

According to this latest policy, if Shenzhen young people can enter the Chinese League, they will be able to receive a government reward, and if they can make a breakthrough in the home operation of the new Chinese League, they will be able to receive another government subsidy.