Reporter Wang Wei and intern reporter Huang Hao report If you only look at the appearance, Kenichi Uemura has a face of "don't get close to the living". In Sanshui, when the two team members stepped out of the elevator and saw Uemura, they stood stunned in place, afraid of what the coach said. Kenichi Uemura walked over solemnly, suddenly patted the team members as he passed by, and then smiled and made a light joke with the team members.

Kenichi Uemura when he was a player, missed the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea due to injury. At the moment, some players in the national junior squad are battling injuries. He comforted his disciples to take advantage of the injury to do strength training on the parts of the body that were not injured, "Injuries are something that all players do not want to face but have to face, we should not only pursue the body to recover to the level before the injury, but also pursue to become stronger after the comeback." Kenichi Uemura said.

When asked, "Why is the gap between Chinese and Japanese players becoming more and more obvious as adults?" Kenichi Uemura pointed out that youth football should not only focus on the physical fitness of players to arrange tactics, but also need to achieve "five rings" in youth training.

◆Football: This Sanshui training camp is our last training camp in China before the start of the U17 Asian Cup, what is the current state of the team?

Kenichi Uemura: I chose to train in Foshan this time because I hope the players can adapt to the hot climate of Saudi Arabia in advance. After the start of the training camp, affected by the sudden rise in temperature and rainfall, the turf soil of the training site was soft, and the players were affected by some influence in the process of kicking the ground.

◆With the match against Saudi Arabia on April 4 getting closer and closer, what are our main preparations at this stage?

At this stage, the biggest preparation task is to analyze the opponents in the three group stages, and make targeted pre-match arrangements, including formulating tactical play methods that limit the characteristics of the opponents, as well as formulating various countermeasures in the course of the game in advance, which are the most important and crucial for me.

◆At what point in the preparation process will the coaching staff start to explain the tactics of the three opponents to the players?

In daily training, the coaching staff will explain the tactical videos to the players based on the specific training scenarios of the day, and some of these scenarios will be simulated according to the actual situation of the opponent. A few days before the game, the coaching staff will do another analysis by playing the full video to deepen the understanding of the players.

◆What are the characteristics of the three opponents in the group stage?

Among the three opponents, I estimate that Saudi Arabia will have the strongest individual combat ability, while the Thai team has the strongest overall tactical literacy. In addition, the performance of several key players in the Thai team will directly affect the strength of the whole team, what we need to do is to limit the performance of these core players of the opponent to take the initiative in the game. All three teams have a very similar play-up on both ends of the pitch, and they all put a lot of emphasis on organisation and penetration at the back, and I think that's a big part of what we have on the defensive end.

◆Football: You have been coaching in China for so many years, and you have also worked in the national team for two years, what do you think caused the huge gap between Chinese players and Japanese players after the age of 18?

Kenichi Uemura: In the adolescent development stage, Chinese children have an innate physical advantage compared to Japanese children. However, when the physical advantage is gone, we will see that Japanese players are at a higher level, whether they are teenagers or adults. For this U17 national junior team, they are still in the stage of adolescent development, so we can't just focus on the physical quality of the players, we also need to take into account their on-the-spot decision-making ability, social ability, psychological quality and other aspects to cultivate. Without these abilities as support, they will be overtaken by other players when they lose their physical advantage.

◆How can we avoid losing our physical advantage and being overtaken?

Broadly speaking, what we call the "five rings" is to cultivate the corresponding abilities of players from the five aspects of technique, tactics, mentality, body and social, rather than just cultivating them physically.

◆In the U20 Asian Cup, the Chinese team did not have a physical advantage when facing Australia and even the Saudi Arabian team. Now that the Under-17s are about to face Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan in the group stage, how should we deal with the possible physical disadvantage?

We can't reverse the physical disadvantage in a short period of preparation, we need to use the numerical advantage of the defender to make up for the physical deficit. For example, if our player breaks the ball with a header and he may be knocked down by an opposing player in the process of scrambling, then the teammates around the defense will immediately appear to fight for the second landing point of the ball. To put it more simply, that is, when one defense and one is not successful, increase the number of local defenders, and use the numerical advantage to reduce the physical disadvantage. Due to geographical reasons, the body of young players in West Asia is close to the physique of adults, and in the actual game, the Saudi team is better at using long passes to launch an attack, in this case, we have to put up a corresponding defensive formation, keep a good distance between the defensive lines, and use this defense to limit the opponent's long pass attack to the greatest extent.

◆What do we need to do in terms of set-piece defence?

The most important thing is not to easily foul in the backcourt. In addition, we will also study the free kick tactics of our opponents in recent games to develop a defensive strategy based on this.

◆We conceded a late goal in the quarter-finals of the U20 Asian Cup and missed the chance to qualify for the World Youth Championships, so how can we avoid that for the U17s?

I would like to give you an example, before the start of the Asian Cup qualifiers in October last year, we analyzed the Korean team and believed that they were very strong in terms of individual and overall strength, but after the start of the qualifiers, through the on-site observation of the Korean team, we believe that although the individual skills are at a disadvantage, we still have a fight with them, as long as we play the characteristics of the team, and even take the initiative on the field, the final facts proved our judgment. Through this incident, I want to show that until the moment of the game, we can't know the real gap between us and our opponents. So back to the question just now, how to avoid conceding the ball in the last moments, in the end, you have to deal with the actual situation on the field.

◆Football: Through the U20 Asian Cup, we can feel the eagerness of the outside world for Chinese youth football to return to the world stage, will this expectation bring pressure to the U17 national youth?

Kenichi Uemura: I think this needs to be looked at from two sides. On the one hand, this urgent desire can make the players more clear about their personal goals and form a better internal drive to move forward. On the other hand, they also have to learn to overcome and deal with the pressure brought by the outside world, which is also a necessary quality for a professional athlete.

◆Wei Xiangxin recently played in the Chinese Super League, and he became the first player in the 2008 age group to play in the Chinese Super League. Playing in the top league at the age of 16, do you think it will be sooner or later?

From my point of view, there is no sooner or later. Spain's Yamal is already in the starting position for the national team and club at this age. In Japan, I know a kid who just graduated from junior high school and played in a professional league at the age of 15. Whether a player can play in the top flight depends on his individual ability and whether he can adapt to the rhythm of the top flight. In my opinion, if you have the ability, the sooner you can play in the top league, the better.

◆There are reports that you have missed the World Cup due to injury, and I want to confirm with you here? Based on your personal experience, how do you think young players should overcome the setbacks of injuries?

First of all, it's true. No player wants to be injured, and it's a shame to miss a major game because of an injury. Minor injuries that only take a few weeks to recover from are fine, but if they are more serious, they require a long recovery period and players face great psychological tests in the recovery process. Let's say a player has a serious knee injury, then he needs 6 months to recover, during which time he can strengthen the rest of his body in the gym, and if the injury is to his dominant foot, he can also improve the backfoot, which will be very helpful for the rest of the player's career. What we are looking for is not to return to a normal state after the injury, but to hope that the body can reach a better state after the injury is healed.

◆Before a big game, how do you give the players a mental massage to get their performance to their level?

When I played in the Under-17 Asian Cup qualifiers last year, it was normal for some players to be nervous. You can be moderately nervous during the game, but you must keep your mind clear and know what to do at which moment, rather than messing around and affecting your performance. If these players want to play in the professional league in the future, they will need to learn to overcome the mental quality problems.