Vladimir Borovicka, assistant coach of Zenit St. Petersburg, looked carefully at Chen Yingxiong standing in front of him.
At first glance, he was very satisfied. The Chinese looked quite strong, with muscles all over his body.
Ruslan Panchenko had told him what had happened at the CSKA training base in Moscow.
But he had no interest in the story. It was not surprising that a goal was scored over the head of a Moscow youth team defender when the boy in front of him was over 1.9 meters tall.
He preferred seeing to believing anyway, so no matter what Panchenko said, he had to see Chen Yingxiong's performance with his own eyes before making a decision.
"Hello, Yingxiong." He greeted Chen Yingxiong in English.
"Hello, coach." Chen Yingxiong replied neither humbly nor arrogantly.
Borovikia was quite satisfied. This kid had a good attitude, but he didn't know if he was strong enough. The mentality of a professional player was also very important. If he had a strong body but a weak heart to support it, he would not be able to go far in his professional football career.
Chen Tao was standing beside them, looking at the two people with both excitement and nervousness.
They took Panchenko's car early this morning and arrived in St. Petersburg. Panchenko originally wanted to rest for a day before going to the club, but Chen Yingxiong told him that he was not tired at all and he would go directly to the training base. Panchenko checked the time. It was past four in the afternoon and the team was training. It was good. If he went at this time, everyone would be there. So he drove directly to the Udelny Park training base (named after the park next to it), which was the training base of Zenit St. Petersburg.
Then they quickly met with assistant coach Borovikia
Chen Tao was very satisfied with the attitude shown by this club.
Completely different from CSKA Moscow, the coaches of Zenit seemed to be more friendly and easier to get along with.
He thought that if his son could finally stay here, it would be much better than staying in Moscow...
"I heard Ruslan tell you about yesterday's story."
Chen Yingxiong grinned.
"I'm curious about your physical abilities, how about we do a physical test first?"
"No problem, Mr. Coach."
Borovikia nodded and motioned for physical trainer Valery Kerzhakov to come over.
…
The physical test was actually very simple. First, Chen Yingxiong's height and weight were measured, and then he was asked to do five sets of 100-meter sprints, five sets of 30-meter shuttle sprints, and a twelve-minute long-distance run.
Unlike a formal physical fitness test, this was just to give Zenit's coaches a basic understanding of the physical fitness of this big man in front of them - he looked tall and strong, but how fast was he and how was his endurance?
Chen Tao stood on the sidelines, watching his son being tested on the court.
He was not worried at all about his son's physical fitness.
He himself was not tall, but his son seemed to have a genetic mutation and grew rapidly.
Chen Yingxiong grew up fast and liked football, so Chen Tao sent him to play football. At first, he really didn't want to train his son to be a professional player. He just thought that since his son liked it, he would send him to play. Later, he found that his son showed some talent for playing football, so he began to seriously consider letting him train to become a professional player.
At that time, China's professional league had just started and was in full swing. The enthusiasm of Chinese fans that had been suppressed for many years was stimulated by their own professional league. The media reported on the lives of professional players and professional leagues. Those stars frequently appeared in newspapers. Chen Tao felt that there was nothing wrong with letting his son become a professional football player.
Chen Yingxiong has always eaten the best and most nutritious food since he was a child. His family rarely ate pork and mainly ate beef, chicken, and fish. They had milk and eggs every day and had never stopped. In the mid-1990s, not many families could do this. It was only because Chen Tao went into business that his family had the financial strength to do so.
Chen Yingxiong lived up to his father's hope of a successful son and the cost of the beef, milk and eggs. He was a head taller than all his peers since the fourth grade of elementary school, and his body grew rapidly until high school when his growth slowed down. Now he was 1.92 meters tall and weighed 93 kilograms-
In 1994, China's first professional football league kicked off in Chen Tao's hometown. The football craze quickly swept across China. Many teenagers were sent by their parents to various football schools for training. Chen Yingxiong was one of these thousands of teenagers.
From football school to a professional team, and then to the echelons of a professional football club, Chen Yingxiong was promoted smoothly all the way - of course, the red envelopes his father gave to those coaches were also indispensable.
With his excellent physical fitness, he still had a place in the club's youth team. But such a smooth experience seems to have made Chen Yingxiong's temper rise.
Just when he was about to become a professional player, the fight happened. Everything was over. Twelve years of childhood and youth, hundreds of thousands of RMB in expenses, all the beef, eggs and fresh milk he had eaten... all went down the drain.
What to do?
My son has been playing football since he was a child. Although he has also taken cultural classes in football school, what effect can such cultural classes have if they are only taught half a day and he often skips classes? At most, it can prevent his son from becoming illiterate.
My son doesn't know anything except football.
That week, he was so angry that he didn't say a word to his son. At the same time, he was also thinking about his son's future... How pitiful are parents in the world? No matter how sad his son makes him, he still has to think about him. After thinking about it, Chen Tao felt that the boy had to continue playing football. However, he had seen a lot of dirty things in Chinese football clubs over the years. He thought that if he stayed in China, with his son's personality, he might not be able to play well... Or should he try his luck abroad? Weren't European football leagues very developed? Then go to Europe!
So, Chen Tao, who had made up his mind, secretly borrowed some money from his relatives and friends and scraped together 100,000 yuan. He used the excuse of bringing his son to Germany to watch the World Cup.
However, my son might have been able to play in a domestic club, but in Europe, people don't even look at him! Chen Yingxiong didn't even qualify for his national team, so how could he impress those picky Europeans?
In China, if you don't have enough skill, you can make up for it with red envelopes. If your son is not wanted, you can give money to get him in. In Europe, you can't even find a way to give money!
…
Chen Yingxiong's physical fitness test made Borovikia very satisfied.
The times for the five sets of 100-meter sprints were 11.79 seconds, 11.78 seconds, 11.95 seconds, 11.98 seconds, and 12.11 seconds respectively.
Compared with the speed players like Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos in their prime, his speed is not particularly fast, but it is definitely not slow. From this set of data, it can be seen that his speed has not dropped significantly. You should know that these five sets of 100-meter sprints are continuous with only 30 seconds of rest after each set. Under such high-intensity sprints, the time used is reduced so little. Besides, it is amazing that a big man can run at such a speed.
From this, we can see that although Chen Yingxiong is not a pure speed player, his body has good sustained explosive power and very good physical fitness.
This was also confirmed in the subsequent 30-meter sprint shuttle run and 12-minute run.
Chen Yingxiong's twelve-minute running result is 4,600 meters.
This result made Borovikia very happy. You know, the average result of the twelve-minute run in his team is only 3,800 meters, and the result of 4,600 meters is already the best in the current first team.
It seems that Chen Yingxiong's physical fitness is indeed quite outstanding.
After testing his physical fitness, Borovikia let Chen Yingxiong take a rest and prepare for the ball test.
Chen Yingxiong was sitting on the sidelines, and his father immediately ran up to give him a leg massage and a thumbs-up. He had been staring at the assistant coach, and the joy on the assistant coach's face when he saw Chen Yingxiong's results made Chen Tao very happy.
Well begun is half done. He hoped that this time his son could win the favor of the coach.
After running for twelve minutes, Chen Yingxiong was a little out of breath, but not tired.
You have to know that when the A-League first started the 12-minute running test, the results of those professional players were visible to everyone. At that time, media from all over the country gathered at the Kunming Haigeng Training Base to report on the physical examination. For Chinese professional players at that time, 3,000 meters was the passing line. Only those who ran 3,000 meters within 12 minutes could directly obtain the registration qualification for the new season of the A-League. 2,800 meters required a supplementary test and 3,200 meters was another benchmark, which meant that the player had excellent physical fitness.
At that time, only a handful of people could run over 3,200 meters. Some teams had no one who could run this result. Some players with poor physical fitness ran 2,800 meters, and their saliva and tears were streaming down their faces. Some players even fainted on the track. The media swarmed over like sharks smelling blood, surrounding them and taking pictures non-stop, while the poor "loser" could only curl up in a ball and sob. As a result, the "12-minute run" became synonymous with hell, which frightened many professional players and made coaches quite helpless.
In 2002, under the unanimous opposition of players and coaches, this physical test method, which had been officially linked to competition results since 1992, was cancelled after a full ten years. Chinese professional players no longer had to be scared awake by dreams at night. However, the good times did not last long. They soon found that the YOYO physical test was not much cuter than the 12-minute run...
Anyway, for those players with poor physical fitness and bad attitudes, no matter how scientific the physical test was, it would still make them feel pain.
Chen Yingxiong's result today even surpassed the record of the 12-minute run test set by Cassiano in the A-League - Cassiano ran 4,400 meters at that time. It is said that Cassiano did not try his best and there was also a rumour that it was Cassiano's first time participating in this kind of physical fitness test, and there was no translator, so he just ran stupidly.
With this comparison, you can see how good Chen Yingxiong's physical fitness level is.
Of course, in China, the 12-minute run is a life-or-death test for whether a player can get a job permit for the new season. Now in Zenit, it is just a simple physical test to understand Chen Yingxiong's endurance, and it does not determine whether he can enter Zenit.
After a short break, the coaching staff also completed the arrangements. The team's under-18 youth team accompanied Chen Yingxiong for the test, which was the same as CSKA Moscow yesterday.
A coach with a whistle on his chest walked up to Chen Yingxiong and said to him, "Are you ready, boy?"
Chen Yingxiong nodded.
"The match time is 50 minutes, 25 minutes each for the first and second half, and 10 minutes for the halftime break." From this test, we can see the difference between Zenit St. Petersburg and CSKA Moscow. A real match is obviously more formal and respectful than finding four people to bully one person together.
The coach handed a yellow vest to Chen Yingxiong and asked him to put it on.
Watching his son put on a vest and walk onto the court, Chen Tao couldn't help but get nervous...