The Chinese Super League is now over and the AFC Champions League has come to an end for the time being, but our national team is training and fans can still follow Chinese soccer. However, the national team has once again disappointed in a number of recent matches. The National Olympic team lost to Malaysia with a score of 0-1, and the 08 National Junior Team's performance was also disappointing. During the warm-up match with Japan, this team challenged 4 varsity teams and won only 1 game, and also lost to the Xingguo High School U16 team with a score of 0-4. Even the varsity team of Japan couldn't beat the team, and in the last 5 international matches, we only won 1 game, so there really isn't too much hope for our national team!
Recently, the national Olympic team unfortunately conceded a goal at the last minute in a warm-up match against the Malaysian U23 team, losing 0-1. This made the Malaysian media happy as they had basically struggled to win against the Chinese national soccer team before and now recorded a historic victory. After the match, the Malaysian skipper said that the victory was not enough to cause joy, clearly implying that Chinese men's soccer has declined in strength and that even if the Malaysian team won, there was nothing to be happy about.
In order to participate in a series of training and competition, our 08 National Junior Team traveled to Japan. Unable to play warm-up matches against higher level opponents, we were only able to play against some Japanese college ladder teams. However, the gap between us and our opponents was obvious. During our stay in Japan, this U15 national soccer team did not perform well. In the first match, we met the opening black, losing to Momoyama Gakuen College U16 team with a score of 0-1. In the second match, we faced the Crawshaw Gakuen U15 team and could only end up with a 1-1 score, making it difficult to get a win.
Our U15 national soccer team once again lost to a slightly stronger Hingo High School U16 team and ended up with a 0-4 loss and no face to face. It wasn't until the final game that our national youth came out firing against the Osaka Sakura West U15 team, eventually winning 3-2. However, such a victory did not make the fans happy for the simple reason that the opponent was only a varsity team, and a branch school varsity team at that. Such a 3-2 victory is really not worth celebrating.
With the National Olympic and Junior National Teams losing, and in fact our National Men's Soccer Team losing to South Korea not too long ago, it's safe to say that all the National Soccer Teams are struggling to get out of their losing rut. As our adult men's national team prepares to play in the Asian Cup, our first warm-up opponent is a second division team from Abu Dhabi, currently ranked 8th in the league, and even if the men's national team were to win the match, it would not be much of a workout for the men's national team!
