First Selection for the National team, Breaking the Youngest Record in Team History

Borussia Dortmund's goal tally over the past few seasons has been pitifully low, on par with a relegated team like Bochum, firmly placing them among the bottom few in the Bundesliga.

The primary reason for this is the lack of quality in Borussia Dortmund's forward line.

At this moment, Borussia Dortmund is in desperate need of a powerful striker.

And this problem has been plaguing them for more than just a year or two!

To reverse this outcome, Borussia Dortmund has spent no small amount of money over the years to bring in high-caliber strikers.

In 2001, they spent a hefty 10 million Euro to poach the Czech sharpshooter Jan Koller from Anderlecht.

The following year, they spent another 7.5 million Euro to bring in the Brazilian Ewerthon from Corinthians.

Jan Koller's ability is indeed quite good; he scored 15 league goals last year, enough to rank among the top scorers in the league.

However, Ewerthon's performance has been far worse. Due to injuries and various other reasons, his form at Borussia Dortmund has been inconsistent, making it difficult for him to maintain stability.

Beyond these two, there are no better options to be found on the Borussia Dortmund bench.

Names like Delron Buckley, Matthew Amoah, Ebi Smolarek, and Nelson Valdez...

They are all a bunch of bargain bin players!

A group of duds who have made over 20 appearances each, only to score a single goal or sometimes not even find the back of the net at all!

Borussia Dortmund fans are so frustrated by these flops that they don't even know whether to laugh or cry!

To make matters worse, the team's primary talisman, Jan Koller, is already 32 years old, and his form has begun to decline.

If Borussia Dortmund doesn't hurry up and scout his successor, their forward line will truly collapse once Jan Koller retires.

In this situation, if someone were to recommend a prospect like Gao Lin to them, Borussia Dortmund might actually take an interest.

But Lin Feng's connections aren't that extensive. If Gao Lin needs help with this matter, he shouldn't be looking to him, but rather to someone else: the head coach of the Youth National Team, Klopp.

Klopp graduated from the German Sport University Cologne and has deep connections in the Ruhr Area.

Since Borussia Dortmund belongs to the Ruhr region, he is the perfect person to put in a good word.

Consequently, Lin Feng passed this information on to Gao Lin and suggested that he should ask his club for leave, prepare some highlight reels, and take them to Borussia Dortmund for a trial.

He believed that with Klopp's introduction, the tapes he brought, and his own personal arrival for a trial, the chances of him being scouted by Borussia Dortmund were quite high.

After hearing Lin Feng's advice, Gao Lin was overwhelmed with gratitude:

"Brother Lin, you really are my savior!"

Lin Feng: "Don't get excited just yet. It's not a done deal. Wait until you've actually signed with Borussia Dortmund before you start celebrating."

"Hehe, whether it works out or not, I still thank you, Brother Lin, for pointing me in the right direction. If you ever need anything in the future, just give me a word. Even if it means going through fire and water, I, Gao, will never refuse!"

Given this guy's tendency to talk big, Lin Feng didn't take his words too seriously.

He simply urged him to hurry and not delay, lest the transfer window close and everything be for nothing.

Gao Lin isn't one to procrastinate. After going offline, he immediately took action.

He requested half a month of leave from Shenhua, flew straight to Germany with his agent, found Klopp, and with his introduction, successfully joined the Borussia Dortmund training camp.

Gao Lin is 1.85 meters tall, which is certainly not short for a forward, but his physical confrontation ability can only be described as average. Furthermore, he doesn't particularly like engaging in close-quarters combat with opposing defenders, which makes it difficult for him to serve as a target man.

However, the Borussia Dortmund coaches soon discovered other merits in this Eastern kid.

They found that Gao Lin has a very high football IQ, excellent passing ability, and very refined footwork. The only issue is that his shooting is a bit unreliable; he often sends the ball flying into the stands—in a very absurd way.

If it weren't for his slightly slow speed and average dribbling ability, he might have had a bright future as a winger.

But even if he couldn't play as a winger or a traditional center-forward, there was still a place for him in the Borussia Dortmund squad.

That was to utilize his strength in passing and playmaking, letting him play as a supporting forward to help his teammates score.

After a conversation with the Youth National Team head coach Klopp and a careful review of the tapes Gao Lin brought, Borussia Dortmund finally decided to sign him.

They submitted a bid of 1.5 million Euro to Shenhua. Shenhua was not entirely satisfied with this offer, but after some back-and-forth bargaining, both sides finally reached an agreement at 1.9 million Euro.

On July 23, Borussia Dortmund officially announced the news on their website.

With this, almost all the key players from the 05 Youth World Cup, with the exception of the goalkeeper, had successfully moved abroad.

The news of Gao Lin's transfer caused another sensation back home.

While the vast majority of fans offered their blessings for Gao Lin's move abroad, they also began to reflect: Why can't our goalkeepers go abroad?

Moving abroad isn't scary; it's only embarrassing when you're the one left behind!

All the other Youth National Team players moved abroad, but the goalkeeper was left behind. There must be a reason for this.

"In competitive sports, being bad is the original sin. When it comes down to it, the level of our goalkeepers is just too low to catch the eyes of foreign clubs, which is why they aren't willing to sign Chinese goalkeepers."

"Hehe, I often see casual fans posting ridiculous claims about how the goalkeeper position is where Chinese football has the smallest gap with the world, or how Chinese goalkeepers are somehow amazing. I find it laughable!"

"If our local goalkeepers were truly that good, would the Football Association have any need to ban the signing of foreign goalkeepers?"

Years ago, Luneng once signed a Montenegrin goalkeeper named Sasha Petrovic. As it turned out, this mediocre, unknown goalkeeper in Europe managed to raise the defensive quality of Luneng's defense line by an entire level.

His various miraculous saves made the forwards of all the Jia-A teams at the time doubt their own existence.

And in that same era, foreign goalkeepers brought in by teams like Shenhua and Chuanxing performed exceptionally well, consistently outshining the domestic goalkeepers.

It was precisely because they had witnessed the terrifying capabilities of foreign goalkeepers that the Football Association felt compelled to issue a ban on foreign goalkeepers, fearing that if other teams followed suit, local goalkeepers would lose their livelihoods.

Starting in 2000, the importation of foreign goalkeepers was prohibited, and teams were required to use local goalkeepers exclusively; Sasha, the foreign goalkeeper for Luneng, was forced to leave as a result.

This closed-door policy not only failed to improve the standard of local goalkeepers but, due to a lack of external exchange, caused the gap in their overall quality to widen even further.

The domestic lack of professional, high-level goalkeeper coaches meant that goalkeeper training was neither scientific nor standardized.

Some goalkeepers even used incorrect hand positioning during saves, yet they remained unaware of it, and the coaches teaching them were equally oblivious.

This was truly absurd!

If they couldn't even teach something as simple as that, what else could one expect?

To bridge this gap, it was essential to open up to external exchanges, hire high-level goalkeeper coaches from abroad with high salaries, and use the most advanced and scientific training methods available today to start from the very basics and properly cultivate domestic goalkeepers.

However, when everyone was using local goalkeepers and everyone was equally mediocre, few were willing to spend the money on such an "unnecessary" expense.

Matters like this required the Football Association to step in.

But given the capabilities of the Football Association, not to mention whether they could even recognize this problem, even if they did, with their decision-making ability and efficiency, it was anyone's guess how long it would take for them to make any changes.

Just as Gao Lin was transferring to Borussia Dortmund, the National Football Team announced its 23-man roster for the East Asian Football Championship on July 22.

What drew significant attention from the outside world was that this roster included five young players from the China Youth Team who had recently competed in the Youth World Cup.

These five players were: Lin Feng, Zhao Xuri, Feng Xiaoting, Hao Junmin, and Chen Tao.

Among them, Lin Feng, who was selected for the national team roster for the first time, broke the record for the youngest player in the history of the Chinese men's national team at the age of 17 years and 62 days.

The previous record holder was his teammate from the China Youth Team, Zhou Haibin, who was first selected for the national team on January 26, 2003, at the age of 17 years and 161 days.