there is something more worrying than the 0-7 defeat of the chinese national football team.
2024-09-06
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off-stage voice: it’s not time to despair
after a 0-7 loss, it is conceivable that the chinese national football team was once again pushed to the forefront and became the target of criticism from the outside world. as some people joked,"the chinese men's football team has been concentrating on losing for 30 years without any change, and has become a very stable team."
however, although the game was lost, it is not the end of the world.
the top 18 matches have only just been played, and there are still nine to go. from the moment the draw was announced, chinese fans should have known that it would be difficult for the chinese team to win against top asian teams like japan, australia, and saudi arabia. the goal of the chinese national football team is not to fight them head-on, after all, each group has two direct qualifying spots, and the third and fourth place teams also have a chance. i'm afraid that being able to get fourth place would be the best result.
in addition, there is another piece of news. in another match last night, the fourth-tier team bahrain defeated the second-tier australia team 1-0 on the road. from the starting lineup, the players of the bahrain team are all from the domestic league and the clubs of the uae and kuwait leagues. like the chinese team, no players play for european teams. but it is obvious that the bahrain players have stronger confrontation ability and adapt to the fast-changing game rhythm. more importantly, they played with enough bloodiness and aggression. until the last moment of the game, the bahrain team, with one more player, continued to attack and finally forced the opponent to score an own goal.
in addition, saudi arabia tied indonesia 1-1 at home, and palestine, the "bottom-ranked" team in group b, tied south korea 0-0 away, proving once again that the world cup qualifiers are full of suspense and surprises. facing direct competitors such as bahrain and indonesia, the most important thing for the chinese national football team is to strive to get more points and lose less, at least to avoid being eliminated too early in the group.
·after a crushing defeat, wipe away your tears and start again
yan junling, who was on the bench, covered his face with his hands, unable to look straight; wu lei, who was leaving the field at the end of the game, had a look of confusion and helplessness in his eyes. on the big screen at tokyo saitama stadium, there was an extremely dazzling score: 7 to 0!
in the first match of the 2026 mexico city world cup asian qualifiers, facing the asian football leader japan, many people expected to lose, but few people would have guessed that the chinese men's football team would be defeated so badly - in the historical confrontation between the two teams, the chinese national football team has never lost to japan by more than two goals. and this night, the chinese national football team not only "refreshed" the record by a large margin, but also created the shame of the biggest score loss in the history of the world cup qualifiers...
it's really abnormal
we can lose the game, but no one can accept losing so much.
according to post-match statistics, the japanese team, playing at home, had the upper hand, with 9 shots on target out of 17, which means they scored a goal every 2 to 3 shots. they also had a possession rate of over 75%, which was like practicing half-court offense and defense. the chinese team was unable to organize an effective attack, with only one shot that was not on target - if you can call it a "shot".
from the 12th minute, the chinese team's defense was seriously missing a player. endo wataru was unmarked in the corner kick and easily headed the ball in. in the first half stoppage time, doan ritsu made a cross from the right, and premier league star mitoma kaoru headed the ball into the goal to expand the score to 2-0. the chinese national football team, which is generally tall and known as the "chinese header team", was scored two headers in a row by the opponent. how did they defend this?
no wonder the famous player fan zhiyi, who was commentating on the game live by the huangpu river, beat his chest and stamped his feet: "it was too easy for the opponent to score in this game. if it weren't for the distance, i really wanted to jump into the huangpu river. we can accept you losing to japan, but letting the opponent score so easily is really too bad!"
in front of the japanese team, which had only trained for two days, the chinese men's football team completely became a "three-no team": no technology, no tactics, and no fighting spirit. needless to say, the gap in the first two points is obvious. but the third point is what many fans are most dissatisfied with. if you can't beat them, you have to fight. bump, shovel, you can't let the opponent pass the ball and shoot easily, right? they are like wooden stakes on the field, without any spirit!
in international a-level matches, the chinese national football team has played against the japanese team 37 times in history, with a record of 13 wins, 9 draws and 15 losses. although the last time they defeated the japanese team was in 1998, the two teams last met in the 2022 east asian cup, where the chinese national football team tied the opponent 0-0. before last night, the chinese national football team had only lost to the japanese team by a net score of 2 goals at most, and this time it was considered a new low.
the result of the tragic defeat also proved that ivan's choice of the starting lineup was definitely a mistake. the old coach arranged a 442 formation, showing a defensive posture, but the two defensive midfielders could not pass the ball forward at all, causing zhang yuning and wu lei in the frontcourt to become "headless flies". yang zexiang, xu haoyang, xie wenneng and others who were entrusted with important tasks by him were all playing in such a level and intensity of the game for the first time, and they were completely unable to let go. and the naturalized players alan and fernando, who had stronger personal abilities, were all placed on the bench and sat for most of the game.
the chinese team is weak, but they are not so easily teased by the japanese team. i can't help but ask: how does the head coach usually train? how does he make targeted arrangements?
actually, it's normal
after feeling depressed or even angry, think about it calmly and you will find that it is actually normal.
the two teams are indeed not on the same level. the chinese national football team relied on the help of the singaporean team to advance to the round of 18 with a slight advantage of one goal difference over the thai team. today, the japanese team has long been a world-class second-rate team that has "left asia and entered europe". in the 2022 qatar world cup, it defeated spain and advanced to the round of 16 as the first in the death group.
this overall gap is definitely difficult to make up with just one or two players like wu lei. with the configuration of the japanese team, even if they send a second or even third team, i am afraid that the chinese national team will not be a match. judging from the course of last night's game, the chinese national team was pressed to the ground and even had difficulty crossing the half court. the japanese team did not fully exert their strength. if they really wanted to play hard and score 10-0, they could have done it.
take a look at the 11 starting players of the japanese team, all of them are from european leagues. some of the players who scored goals, endo wataru plays for liverpool, mitoma kaoru plays for brighton, minamino takumi is from monaco in ligue 1, ito junya plays for reims, kubo takefusa is from real sociedad, and maeda dairan is from celtic in the scottish premier league. in terms of value, the highest-paid player in the chinese national football team, wu lei, is only 1.2 million euros, while kubo takefusa is 50 million euros. he alone is several times more expensive than the entire chinese national football team combined.
with wu lei returning to his parent club shanghai port from espanyol in the middle of the 2022 season, the number of chinese players playing in european leagues has returned to "zero", while the japanese team can easily field two overseas lineups. with such a gap, how can they play?
after the game, coach ivan lamented: "japan is a world-class team with very high-level players. this was a tough game for us. as a coach, this was my saddest night." and zhang yuning also said: "the final score shows the gap between chinese football and japanese football. we must face up to this gap and strive to play better when we return to our home court."
although these words sound very familiar, they are the reality of chinese football today.what else can we do? after the crushing defeat, wipe away the tears and start again. there are still 9 games left, and we should strive to win the games we should win. this is the only pitiful hope that chinese fans have.。
written by: xinmin evening news reporter guan yin
image: photo by xinmin evening news reporter li mingshen
editor: lu weixin
