Starting with playing defensive midfield for Evergrande

Chapter 45 Su Hao's National Team Debut? (Please Read On)
2013 3 Month 9 Day.

With the conclusion of the match between Jiangsu Sainty and Wuhan Zall, all 16 teams in the Chinese Super League have completed their season debuts.

恒大3：1击败山东鲁能全取3分，而作为恒大夺冠最大阻碍的京城国安则是在自己的主场5:1大胜了中超新军上海上港！
Because of their superior goal difference, Beijing Guoan is now ranked first, ahead of Guangzhou Evergrande.

This first place made Beijing Guoan fans smugly head over to Guangzhou Evergrande's official website to show off again!
Other traditional powerhouses, such as Shanghai Shenhua, were held to a 1-1 draw by Tianjin Kangshifu and finished eighth in the league.

Tianjin Teda were unexpectedly defeated by newly promoted Dalian Albin in the final moments, losing 0-1 and ranking third from the bottom in the league.

Apart from that, the eight matches in the first round of the Chinese Super League were generally unremarkable, with no other eye-catching news.

However, compared to this information about the Chinese Super League, fans are actually more interested in the player roster for the friendly match between the Chinese national team and the Thai national team, which the Chinese Football Association will soon announce.

It happened on the afternoon of March 9th.

A reporter interviewed Camacho, the then head coach of the Chinese men's national football team.

During the interview, the reporter asked Camacho directly for his opinion on Evergrande's newcomer, Su Hao.

There's no way around it; although it was only these two short matches, Su Hao's performance was truly phenomenal.

Given this performance, reporters naturally assumed that Camacho would definitely call up Su Hao for the upcoming national team friendly match.

He joined the national team at the age of 16!
This is definitely another record-breaking moment that is even more outrageous.

However, to the reporters' surprise, they only wanted to ask if Su Hao could join the national team, but Camacho actually dropped a bombshell on the media!
"I've watched that guy's games, and he played very well, but whether the national team... well, whether the national team will call him up needs to be decided by the Football Association after they've studied it!"

After saying that, Camacho ended the interview abruptly!

Does the Chinese Football Association need to study the selection of players for the national team?
What did Camacho mean by that?
It's obvious they're attacking the Chinese Football Association.

This clearly shows that Camacho has no right to decide the national team's roster. Who makes the national team and who doesn't is entirely up to the Football Association!

One stone caused a thousand waves!

Domestic fans were already dissatisfied with the Football Association, and now, with a heavyweight coach like Camacho delivering such a powerful blow.

Fans across the country naturally flooded the Football Association's official website once again.

However, the Chinese Football Association shut down the comment and message function several years ago because their website was bombarded with criticism.

With nowhere else to vent their anger, fans could only build a towering thread on Dadi Bar, the largest online forum in China, to unleash their fury.

In the end, even the personal Weibo account of the head of the Chinese Football Association was bombarded by angry fans.

On the morning of March 10th, at the Chinese Football Association headquarters building, several key management personnel held a small meeting early in the morning due to Camacho's extremely irresponsible remarks.

The contents of the meeting were kept confidential and no records were made.

After the two-hour meeting, the Chinese Football Association secretly communicated with the Chinese coaching staff through the then-national team leader, and then directly announced the player roster for the friendly match on the official website.

Goalkeepers: 1. Yang Cheng (Shandong Luneng) 2. Zeng Cheng (Guangzhou Evergrande) 3. Wang Dalei (Shanghai Shenhua)

【后卫：1.赵鹏（广州恒大）2.冯潇霆（广州恒大）3.郑铮（山东鲁能）4.周云（江苏舜天）5.郎征（北京国安）6.孙祥（广州恒大）】

【中场：1.秦升（广州恒大）2.赵旭日（广州恒大）3.王永珀（山东鲁能）4.郑智（广州恒大）5.于海（贵州人和）6.孙可（江苏舜天）7.苏浩（广州恒大）】

Forwards: 1. Gao Lin (Guangzhou Evergrande) 2. Yang Xu (Shandong Luneng) 3. Yu Dabao (Dalian Aerbin)

Seemingly in an attempt to quell the fans' anger, Su Hao's name actually appeared on the 23-man roster.

Although it was just a friendly match, as soon as the roster was released, Su Hao's name immediately went viral across the country.
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[Haha, Su Hao is amazing to be in the national team at 16! I was thinking he'd have to start from the youth team and gradually work his way up!]
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[Promoted to the national youth team? What are you thinking? What's Su Hao's ability? Sending him to the national youth team would be a waste of his talent! But I think Su Hao could actually play for the national junior team. The AFC U-19 Championship is in June, and if Su Hao were there, the national junior team would definitely make it to the semi-finals. That way, Su Hao could also participate in the FIFA U-20 World Cup at the end of the year!]
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[Yes, yes, yes! With Su Hao's ability, he'll definitely attract the attention of scouts after the World Youth Championship. Maybe he'll even be playing in one of the top five European leagues after the New Year!]
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[If that's the case, Su Hao might as well have participated in the national Olympic team as well. With Su Hao on the team, maybe our national Olympic team could even make it to the Olympics. But the Olympics are still three years away, which seems too far!]
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The Football Association actually did something worthwhile this time, managing to recruit Su Hao, which shows that this leadership is still willing to listen to the voices of us fans!
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【Pah! You wish! You think you'd listen to us? You just don't want to be yelled at!】
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[Haha, Thailand was already a weak country, and now with Su Hao, they're bound to strip all the Thai girls naked!]

Su Hao has made it into the national team, which has pleased the fans. However, Su Hao was quite surprised when he learned that he had actually made the roster for this match.

There was nothing he could do; Su Hao remembered the outcome of that match perfectly well.

The massive defeat on March 3.15th!
This is the biggest tragedy in Chinese football in nearly a century.

In Hefei, the Chinese national football team, fielding its full strength squad, surprisingly lost 1-5 to Thailand's U23 team!

As I recall, after that match, the national football team's bus was surrounded by crazy fans for several hours.

If there hadn't been enough security personnel at the time, these 23 people might have been killed there.

Moreover, it was this very match that forced the FA to terminate Camacho's contract, despite his lack of contribution!
Of course, Su Hao also knew that several years later, another version of the match would circulate among the fans.

A version where the entire Chinese national football team and the Football Association worked together to defeat Camacho.

However, this is just hearsay and there is no evidence to support it.
Su Hao also didn't know the reason why the Chinese national football team lost 1-5 to Thailand in this match.

until
Several hours after the roster was announced, Zheng Zhi called and asked Su Hao to decline his national team debut due to injury, which finally confirmed Su Hao's decision.

It seems to be the second version. Is it true?
P.S.: It was blocked for a long time. I revised it several times and deleted a lot of stuff before it was finally approved.

The 1-5 match was originally scheduled for June, but in order to get Camacho out of the game sooner, the match was written out earlier.

Finally, to help my wounded little heart recover, I'm still begging for your monthly votes, Dads!
(End of this chapter)