Chinese football flies from Shenzhen to Bangkok, Thailand, officially embarking on the journey of the World Cup qualifiers. At 20:30 Beijing time on the 16th, the Chinese football team will play their first opponent, Thailand, away.
Standing at the 13th World Cup milestone, Chinese football faces both opportunities and challenges.
Is it the opportunity brought by the increase of 8.5 qualifying spots in the Asian region? Or is it that the challenges faced by the Chinese national football team, which is facing a decline in strength due to a lack of youth and youth, greater? The preliminary answer will be given for the match against the Thai team.
Embark on a journey to the world preliminaries
Unlike the Maldives team, which had limited strength in the first game of the previous World Cup qualifiers, the Chinese national football team faced a similar strength Thai team at the beginning of this World Cup qualifier, and the starting pressure was significantly higher. Therefore, the Chinese national football team did not have the capital to lead the team to practice matches in the early stages of the previous World Cup qualifiers after Lippi returned.
Although this Chinese national football team has been preparing for the World Cup qualifiers under the leadership of new coach Jankovic since March, and more than half a year seems to be ample time, there still seems to be a feeling of rushing to play now.
The Chinese national football team has played 8 warm-up matches in the past six months, achieving 3 wins, 2 draws, and 3 losses. In terms of warm-up quality, it is still good. In the warm-up matches, the Chinese national football team faced not only former tough opponents like Vietnam and rapidly growing Malaysia, but also strong opponents like Uzbekistan.
During this process, Jankovic emphasized the most about "discovering and solving problems". However, until now, the selection of the right winger for the Chinese national football team seems to have not found an ideal answer, and the midfield position of the team still seems a bit out of control in the game. Of course, this is indeed due to the factor that "clever women cannot cook without rice".
After the Chinese national football team lost 1-2 to Uzbekistan in the warm-up match in October, Yankovic once said that this was a painful process he had experienced in advance. "The cost paid is very high, and I need the team to stop making such mistakes in a month."
A month has passed in the blink of an eye, and the Chinese national football team has officially embarked on the journey of the World Cup qualifiers. It is time to hand in their answers.
A smooth start is crucial
In the C group where the Chinese national football team is located, the South Korean team with significantly higher strength will inevitably lock in a spot for promotion, while the Singapore team has the lowest ranking in this group. The remaining spot to advance to the round of 18 is mainly due to the competition between the Chinese national football team and the Thai team.
The first game is the decisive battle, and now the Chinese men's football team is also facing the same situation as the Chinese women's football team in the World Cup and Olympic qualifiers, but Chinese football needs to break through this time.
The opponent Thailand team is currently ranked 112th in the world, slightly lower than the world ranking of their warm-up opponent Vietnam in October. At that time, China was able to defeat Vietnam 2-0.
For the 79th ranked national football team in the world, Thailand seems to have a slight advantage. But in reality, the advantage is not as great as the ranking shows. After all, in the previous AFC Champions League playoffs, Shanghai Haigang lost 2-3 to Baton United. Both teams are big players in their respective national teams, with 4 players each selected for this season's World Cup qualifiers.
