Opinion | From a military camp to Croatia, China’s future stars are at the whim of scatterbrained thinking

Just when you thought Chinese football could not get any more bizarre than removing 55 players from their clubs midway through the season for a military training camp, it has.

Reports in Chinese media suggest these players will form a team to compete not in China as originally rumoured, but in the Croatian lower leagues.

There is a certain logic hidden in there somewhere, along the lines of “Croatia just finished runners-up in the World Cup so the Chinese players will improve playing there”.

But of the Croatia squad who came so close to glory in Russia, only two of the 23 played for Croatian clubs and one of them has since moved to an Italian side.

This is a second “golden generation”, the first being Croatian Football Federation president Davor Suker’s vintage that starred at Euro ’96 and France ’98.