South Korean coach insists Chinese players lack tactical understanding

Former Jiangsu Suning coach Choi Yong-soo has claimed that Chinese players do not have a sound knowledge on the tactical side of the beautiful game.


The South Korean manager left his post with the Nanjing-based club in order to return to FC Seoul.

Choi resigned from his head position earlier in the week after seeing his side ousted from the Asian Champions League by domestic rivals Shanghai SIPG and he has now returned to Seoul, with whom he won the Korean league title five years ago.

Following his exit, the former South Korean striker was full of praise for the excellent training and coaching facilities in the Chinese Super League, but he appeared to criticise the standard of the domestic players, he said: "CSL clubs possess world-class hardware facilities and the level of the coaching staff is quite high but Chinese players’ understanding is relatively weak,” Choi said on his return to South Korea."

He added that Korean-based players would obey with the tactical instructions for at least 85 percent of the time which is quite high compared to Chinese players, who only do the same for an hour thus putting more pressure on the foreign recruits, he added: "If you use the same tactics, Korean players will carry it out 85 percent of the time but Chinese players will only carry it out less than 60 percent of the time, and that makes (it) hard (for) foreign coaches to display their ability."

The Chinese Super League clubs has coughed up huge sums over the years in order to attract coaches of the calibre of Luiz Felipe Scolari who has previously coached Brazil to a World Cup triumph in 2002. The national team is currently working under the tutelage Italian World Cup winner Marcello Lippi but their hopes of qualifying for the showpiece event next year looked to have already diminished.

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