Qatar 2022: no booze, pork or excess body fat key to China’s World Cup hopes, says Li Tie
- Amazon’s Manchester City documentary helping Chinese national team to bond, says head coach Li Tie
- Former Everton midfielder has instilled triple training sessions as players get in shape for Qatar 2022 qualifier return
Li Tie, the head coach of China’s men’s national football team, has told Chinese state media how he has banned alcohol and pork in an effort to improve the country’s chances of reaching the Fifa World Cup.
In a wide-ranging interview with CCTV Sports’ “Football Night” show on Sunday, the former Everton midfielder also spoke about naturalisation, team bonding and the fitness of his players.
Li explained the habit of forming healthy lifestyles for his players, while the strict disciplinarian said he expected players to take care of themselves on and off the field.
“Players must be disciplined both on and off pitch. There’s no way you drink or get in late to training and still perform well on pitch,” Li said.
“You can’t eat pork or other things that increase body fat. You have to become very healthy. They are players of the national team, and their requirements are there. I always hope to guide them in this regard.”
Li, who was part of the only Chinese men’s team to qualify for a World Cup back in 2002, said that his players’ body fat was between 8 and 9 per cent.
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“Most of our national team’s players have body fat between 8 and 9 [per cent],” Li said. “The better ones like Wu Xi, can reach 8.1 or 8.2, and they are doing very well.”
Li said that the team have watched films and documentaries to inspire them and create unity.
They watched Leap the film about Lang Ping and the 1984 Olympic gold medal winning Chinese women’s volleyball team starring Gong Li, and the Russian film Three Seconds on the 1972 Munich Olympics men’s basketball match between the Soviet Union and USA.
Li also showed them the All or Nothing: Manchester City series from Amazon, pointing out club captain Vincent Kompany’s leadership and praising it for being focused on football success not material rewards.
Naturalisation has been a big issue for the Chinese team and its fans but Li said that the process was going smoothly.
Li said that he worked with the translator to welcome the players but the naturalised players had impressed him with their desire to play for China.
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“Jiang Guangtai [Tyias Browning], Ai Kesen [Elkeson], A Lan [Alan Carvalho] and Li Ke [Nico Yennaris], every player who comes will tell me, ‘Coach, the purpose of my naturalisation is to prove myself in the Chinese national team.’ I said it’s great, I’m really very happy.”
They have been training three times a day during their recent national team camp, Li said, though he rued injuries preventing Browning and Fernandinho [Fei Nanduo] from joining up.
Li also said that Espanyol striker Wu Lei, the only Chinese national team player overseas, is still in his plans and remains in touch in the team WeChat group.
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Wu has not played for China since a World Cup qualifying loss to Syria in November 2019, and has fallen out of favour at the Spanish second tier side this season, barely featuring since the turn of the year.
Despite that Wu would still expect to feature for China when their World Cup qualifying campaign resumes in June.
