can the chinese national football team bring back surprises during its low-key expedition to the east?
2024-09-04
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on the morning of september 2, the chinese men's national football team, which was preparing for the match in dalian, flew from dalian to tokyo to make final preparations for the first round of the 2026 world cup asian qualifiers against japan, which will be held at the saitama 2002 world cup stadium on the 5th. although the team was playing in the top 18, it did not seem to attract much attention from either the national football team itself or the outside world. the tone of this expedition to the east was probably unprecedentedly low.
since the chinese national football team started training in dalian on august 23, although the national football team opens the first 15 minutes every day and arranges two national players to be interviewed every day, the attention during the entire national football training period is not very high. although there are still many fans waiting for the national players to sign or take photos at the door of the hotel where they are staying, the popularity is obviously not very high. there are not many media going to the training ground to interview the national football team training. there are only two or three units or institutions, and even local reporters in dalian are too lazy to run. this may be expected, and a foreseeable situation is: the national football team will play its first game in japan as a guest. it is estimated that there will not be many domestic reporters going to the scene to interview, just like when the national football team played in bangkok, thailand in the first round of the group stage of the top 36. the reason is probably simple: without results as support, the outside world does not seem to have any expectations.
in fact, not only the outside world, but also the football association seems to want to show the outside world a certain attitude of not putting pressure on the team. when the bahrain team, saudi arabia and other opponents in the same group started training on the first day, the leaders of the football association, including the chairman, personally went to the training site to greet the players and cheer for the team. for example, saudi arabian sports minister abdullah aziz even went to the training ground to visit the players in person. the leaders of the chinese football association chose to "stay away" from the national football team. only xu jiren, the newly-in-charged vice chairman of the national football team, took the time to go to dalian and watched a training session at the training ground. the football association's move is to avoid public opinion and unnecessary trouble. moreover, the football association seems to continue to convey the message to the outside world that the national football team will not accompany the team to supervise away games.
originally, it was normal for the leaders of the football association to accompany the team and come forward to solve many problems when possible, especially the necessary role in foreign-related matters. after all, the football association is the first person in charge and the first manager of the national team. for example, the saudi football association has clearly informed the chinese football association that when visiting dalian on september 10, the chairman of the football association and the secretary-general will personally lead the team to arrive. however, in today's domestic football environment, all kinds of necessary and even necessary behaviors have been completely "alienated" or even "misinterpreted" by all parties. therefore, many things that should be done and must be done have been completely simplified or even completely omitted. therefore, the most important task of the national football team to compete in the top 18 has become the national team's "own business."
therefore, the chinese national football team seems to be keeping a low profile, but the actual pressure has not been reduced at all because of this so-called low profile. of course, the team itself is preparing step by step according to the preparation plan prepared in advance by the coaching staff.
since the national football team will set off early in the morning on the 2nd, the training on the evening of september 1st will be advanced from 19:00 to 18:00. judging from the 10 training sessions in dalian in the past 10 days, the national football team has a lot of classes, especially the second to last and third training sessions before the expedition, which lasted more than 120 minutes. from half-court confrontation to full-court confrontation, the entire technical and tactical content has been drilled a lot, and the head coach ivan has also arranged various personnel combinations. it can be said that during the training camp in dalian, all kinds of content that can be drilled have been drilled. not only the content on the green field, including various video analysis, opponent game video clips, etc., but also the content outside the green field, etc., have all been prepared. for example, the international referee shen yinhao also went to dalian to explain the refereeing rules to the national team players.
in other words, the chinese national football team has made all possible preparations for the first match of the top 18. as for the tactical arrangements that the outside fans are concerned about, especially the question of whether to use a diamond midfield or a parallel midfield, at least from the current situation, ivan is likely to choose the parallel midfield position used in the last away game against south korea in the top 36, or to arrange two defensive midfielders to further strengthen the protection and depth of the area in front of the central defender and tighten the fence. moreover, because the players against the south korean team performed well in the game, and no warm-up matches were arranged during the preparation period, ivan, from an insurance perspective, is likely to continue the starting lineup against the south korean team, and will only make adjustments in individual positions, such as the combination of the striker. because ivan cannot only arrange the chinese national football team to defend and give up the attack, on the basis of trying to do a good job in defense, he will still seize the opportunity to counterattack and grasp the efficiency of the attack.
it is reported that since the team will return to dalian to play against saudi arabia on september 10 after playing against japan, all 27 players will go to japan and the final 23 players will be finalized the day before the game. after the game, the team will return to dalian on the 6th. although the football association did not make any demands for this expedition, and the general attitude of the outside world is "less losses are better than wins", the national football team still hopes to have a good performance, and ivan will treat every game with the goal of winning as he did in the past. after all, ivan had the last laugh when he led the team to tokyo.
compared with the japanese team, the only advantage of the chinese national team may be that the team had completed 10 full training sessions before arriving in tokyo, while the japanese team did not fully arrive until the evening of september 2, and only had three full training sessions before the game. so, are there any surprises in the japan-china match?
