The national soccer team will hold a new training session in Shanghai in preparation for the Asian Cup to be held in Qatar in mid-January. The training is now being held in Shanghai and the Asian Cup squad will be presented on December 12 before heading to the UAE for training until the tournament eve when they travel to Qatar. While in the UAE, the national soccer team played two warm-up matches against opponents initially set to be India and Oman, with Oman serving as a template for Asian Cup group rival Qatar, with a similar style of play and little difference in strength. Although Qatar played in their last World Cup, they were the worst World Cup hosts after South Africa.
Qatar is the strongest team in the national soccer team's group, but Qatar is not traditionally an Asian team, and the national soccer team has never been afraid of this West Asian team and has won them in the past World Qualifiers and other tournaments. Now the national soccer team reaped another benefit, namely, a month before the start of the Asian Cup, Qatar changed its coach. Portugal's famed coach Queiroz was abruptly fired, and less than a day after Queiroz's dismissal, Spain's coach, Max Lopez, was quickly and officially announced as the new coach. Not only was there a coaching change, but there was also a change of a "nameless" coach.
Max Lopez is 61 years old and is nicknamed "Tintin" like De Bruyne. Although he is old and inexperienced, his coaching career is highlighted by the fact that he coached Spaniards, but his results were very mediocre. Prior to his stint as Qatar coach, he coached Wakrah in the Qatar League, not only in a low level league, but in a low level team, but with the advantage of knowing more about Qatari soccer. Max's coaching experience has been mainly in the ladder and youth teams and as a fire coach on several occasions, which means that he has taken over a relatively large amount of experience.
While Max knows more about the Qatar league and youth training, he has one fatal flaw and that is that he has never had the experience of leading a national team. There is a big difference in the way national teams and clubs are coached. Some coaches are suited to leading the national team and have been coaching the national team, while others focus on the club. It seems like Qatar took a big risk when a coach like this, who has never led the national team, suddenly became the national team head coach a month before the start of the tournament. In fact, this kind of operation runs counter to their notion of valuing soccer and wanting to achieve quick results.
Of course, we don't need to worry about Qatar, they've changed coaches, but they've also changed rookie coaches, which is naturally good for the national soccer team. We can capitalize on this and use the time before the match to study his style and then give him a taste of the brutality of the national team game. Qatar is the host, which favors them, but the national soccer team has at least no psychological pressure against Qatar.
